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PUBLIC EDUCATION IN 
THE SOUTH 



BY 



EDGAR W. KNIGHT, Ph.D. 

PROFESSOR OF EDUCATION IN THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA 
AUTHOR OF "the INFLUENCE OF RECONSTRUCTION ON EDUCATION IN 
THE SOUTH," "SOME PRINCIPLES OF TEACHING," "PUBLIC- 
SCHOOL EDUCATION IN NORTH CAROLINA," ETC. 




GINN AND COMPANY 

BOSTON • NEW YORK • CHICAGO • LONDON 
ATLANTA • DALLAS • COLUMBUS • SAN FRANCISCO 



COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY EDGAR W. KNIGHT 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 

922.3 



\<^ 



IZTbe latfienaeum Srctftf 



GINN AND COMPANY • PRO- 
PRIETORS • BOSTON • U.S.A. 



MAY I 7 1922 
0)n!.A674165 



f 90 



TO THE MEMORY OF 

EDWARD KIDDER GRAHAM 

GENTLEMAN, SCHOLAR, FRIEND, INSPIRING TEACHER OF YOUTH 

BRILLIANT LEADER OF MEN, EXPONENT AND INTERPRETER 

OF THE SOUTH'S BEST TRADITIONS 



PREFACE 

This book is the outgrowth of several years' study of public 
educational problems in the United States, especially in the South, 
through courses in the history of education given at Trinity 
College and the University of North Carolina for teachers and 
prospective teachers and administrators. In such courses the aim 
has been to consider the principal problems of administration, 
support, and supervision of present-day education in the Southern 
States and to seek an understanding of their meaning in the light 
of their historical growth. The book is therefore a study of 
actual educational progress in the South rather than of educational 
theories ; and the relation between education and economic, social, 
political, and religious influences is given emphasis. 

The book attempts to give the first general survey yet pub- 
lished in a single volume of the growth of public educational 
organization and practices in those eleven States which formed 
the Confederacy. The study seeks to trace the development of 
the democratic principles of education in the South, to explain 
their apparently slow application or practical acceptance, and to 
point out from the past certain valuable lessons for the educa- 
tional problems of the present. The book has been prepared for 
the purpose of assisting the teacher, the educational admin- 
istrator, and the public to a more intelligent understanding of the 
present educational situation in the Southern States and of their 
respective tasks in meeting it. As far as possible, therefore, the 
public educational problems of today are set forth in the light 
of their historical development. Another purpose in mind in the 
preparation of the volume has been to make accessible to the 
student and the teacher certain valuable but scattered and more 
or less inaccessible materials on the educational history of the 



vi PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

Southern States. Another volume now in preparation will include 
valuable documentary and source materials illustrating the evo- 
lution of the democratic ideal of education in those States and 
supplementing the present volume. 

The principles of universal education and the equality of edu- 
cational opportunity have in theory gradually found rather wide 
acceptance in the South, but their practical application has been 
surprisingly slow. This appears in the obvious inequality that 
exists between city children and rural children and is shown in 
the school term, in buildings and equipment, in teaching skill, in 
high-school advantages, and in professional supervision and direc- 
tion now provided for the city and for the rural communities. 
Eighty per cent of the school population in the South live in 
rural sections and the other 20 per cent live in towns and 
cities. That the educational advantages of the 20 per cent are 
in almost every way superior to those of the 80 per cent is 
universally accepted by those acquainted with the conditions. 
In the South the city , child receives nearly 30 per cent more 
and better education every year than the rural child receives. The 
rural school usually lacks intelligent direction and oversight 
and is without unity ; it is often colorless because it has not yet 
been led to respond to the remarkable social, industrialyl and 
educational changes which have taken place in recent years.Alm- 
provements have been made in several directions. There is uni- 
formity of improved texts, but most texts in use in the country 
schools were prepared primarily for the city schools. There is 
more specific training of teachers now than formerly, but such 
training is too often colored by the needs and practices of the 
city schools. The legally prescribed courses of study for the 
rural schools are often of the cut-and-dried type and in the hands 
of the usual rural teacher become outlines for dreary drills. There 
has been an increase in support, and the tendency is toward the 
professional direction of school work generally; but both in 
support and administrative direction the rural school is seriously 
neglected. Moreover, rural conditions are still uninviting and 



PREFACE /' vii 

unsatisfying, and the result is that the most capable teachers and 
the best-trained administrators and supervisors are led away from 
rather than to rural-school work. 

For these reasons public education in the rural sections of the 
South becomes a most insistent and immediately urgent task. 
During the past dozen years commendable educational advance- 
ment has been made, but it has been confined in the main to im- 
provement of the town and city schools. Corresponding progress 
has not been witnessed in the rural communities, where the 
principle of cooperation has not been widely and intelligently 
applied in the solution of common questions and the promotion of 
common interests. The urban communities have learned to co- 
operate in education and other undertakings in a manner not 
yet fully learned or appreciated by the rural and sparsely settled 
communities. And in large measure here is the explanation of the 
inadequate provision for the education of the boys and girls who 
live in rural sections. Happily, however, the South appears now 
to be entering upon a new era in rural-life development. The 
amazing economic wealth, the increasingly large programs for 
road-building, and the movement for improved agricultural prac- 
tices are full of promise for the educational and social develop- 
ment of the South. And in these interests is the foundation 
for rural betterment. 

Many of the causes of the apparent neglect of public educa- 
tion in the South in recent years are not altogether unlike those 
which prevented a more wholesome growth of public schools 
before i860 or those causes which helped to retard progress be- 
tween 1876 and 1900. Sparsity of population, lingering results 
of the old plantation system, farm tenancy, poor means of 
communication, and other factors have always been obstacles in 
the way of public schools. Prior to i860 they were obstinate, 
and since that time their influence on schools has been mis- 
chievous. Added to these retarding factors were others which 
had their origin in the war and the period immediately following 
it. And it was not until the opening years of the present century 



viii PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

that the Southern States were sufficiently recovered from the 
economic and moral evils of that period to set themselves with 
energy and hopefulness to the great task of educating their 
children. 

The substance of parts of Chapters III, X, and XI appeared 
first in the South Atlantic Quarterly and the Sewanee Review, 
and a part of Chapter IV in the High School Journal. They are 
here included through the courtesy of these publications. Certain 
portions of the materials dealing with North Carolina are taken 
from the author's "Public-School Education in North Carolina" 
(Houghton Mifflin Company, 191 6) and are here used by permis- 
sion of the publishers. 

■^ Acknowledgments are here made to Professor William K. Boyd 
of Trinity College (North Carolina), to Professor J. G. deR. 
Hamilton of the University of North Carolina, and to Professor 
Stuart G. Noble of Millsaps College (Mississippi) for reading 
parts of the manuscript, for criticisms concerning the plan of the 
book, and for other helpful suggestions. 



EDGAR W. KNIGHT 



The University of North Carolina, 
Chapel Hill 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER 

I. EUROPEAN ANTECEDENTS .... 



Periods of educational development in the Southern States — Social and 
economic conditions in England during colonization in the South — 
Influences of political conditions and religious changes in England — The 
force of economic interest in the Southern colonies — The Germans and 
the Scotch-Irish in the South and their educational influences — Influences 
of early colonial theories and practices on present conditions — Questions 
for Discussion and Further Study — Bibliography 



II. COLONIAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 



The influence of Virginia and South Carolina during the colonial period 
— The plantation system, indentured servants, and negro slavery — The 
Established Church and religious dissensions — The Society for the Prop- 
agation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts — Charity schools, endowments, 
bequests, philanthropic societies for the education of poor children — Pri- 
vate libraries, establishment of printing presses, and the publication of 
newspapers — Private tutors — Schools not yet regarded as a function 
of the State — Certain conditions delayed the growth of the principle of 
cooperation — The significance of colonial theories and practices for 
present-day educational problems — Questions for Discussion and Further 
Study — Bibliography 

III. PUBLIC EDUCATION OF DEPENDENTS: THE APPREN- 
TICESHIP SYSTEM }7 

The principle of universal education slow to gain practical application in 
the South — The apprenticeship system inherited from England provided 
training for dependent children — The principal features of the English 
law were included in colonial legislation — Early apprenticeship laws in 
Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia — Similar legislation later enacted in 
Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, and Texas 
— The educational significance of the system and its lessons for present- 
day problems of dependency and delinquency — Questions for Discussion 
and Further Study — Bibliography 



X PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

CHAPTER PAGE 

IV. THE ACADEMY MOVEMENT 72 

Three types of secondary schools in the South : the Latin grammar 
school, the academy, the public high school — Types of academies in the 
South— Influence of denominational interest — Manual-labor schools 
and military schools — Characteristics of academies — Decline of acad- — 
emies and rise of the public high school after the Civil War — Questions 
for Discussion and Further Study — Bibliography 

V. BEGINNINGS IN THE OLDER STATES 112 

New conception of education after the Revolution — Influence of Jef- 
ferson and other leaders — Jefferson's school plans of 1779 and 1796 and 
the Virginia school law of 1818 — Conditions in South Carolina: sec- 
tional jealousies — The South Carolina act of 181 1 — Early school legis- 
lation in Georgia — Public education in Tennessee and the acts of 1823 
and 1830 — Conditions in North Carolina — The law of 1839 — Permis- 
sive character of early school legislation in the five older States — 
Questions for Discussion and Further Study — Bibliography 

VI. PERMANENT PUBLIC-SCHOOL FUNDS 160 

Changes in public educational sentiment stimulated by permanent en- 
dowments for schools — Carelessness marked the early administration 
and operation of such funds — Tennessee the first Southern State to 
create a public endowment for schools — The work of the permanent 
fund in Virginia — No ante-bellum fund in South Carolina — Permanent 
endowments in Georgia, Mississippi, and North Carolina before 1825 — 
The surplus revenue of 1837 — Creation of funds in the other Southern 
States — Losses before, during, and after the Civil War — Reorganization 
after 1875 — Present condition of permanent funds — Questions for Dis- 
cussion and Further Study — Bibliography 

VII. THE AWAKENING AND ATTEMPTS AT REFORM . . 19S 

The educational revival of the second quarter of the nineteenth century 
part of broad reform movement — Not confined to any section of the 
country — Response of Virginia in 1829 — Defective character of ante- 
bellum legislation in Virginia — Little response in South Carolina before 
i860 — Law of 181 1 slightly revised in 1835 — Tennessee plan of 1830 
and later revisions — The plan of 1839 in North Carolina and improve- 
ments in 1852 — Georgia's permissive county system — Experiments for 
public educational reform in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, 
Florida, and Texas — Response of the Southern States not complete — 



CONTENTS xi 

CHAPTER PAGE 

But a new educational consciousness was being aroused — Influence of 
slavery, aristocratic conceptions, sectarian interests — The rural charac- 
ter of the South and poor means of communication retarded the revival 
spirit — Considerable progress made for elementary education before 
i860 — Questions for Discussion and Further Study — Bibliography 

VIII. SCHOOL PRACTICES BEFORE 1860 269 _ 

Narrow character of the ante-bellum curriculum and the monopoly of 
the three R's — Variety of texts in use and uniformity of books unknown 
— '"Blue Back' Speller," "New England Primer," and "New York 
Reader" widely used — Importance of arithmetic and popularity of texts 
by Pike, Jess, and Colburn — Geographies used as histories, readers, and 
moral guides^Frequent use of texts by Morse, Olney, and " Peter Parley " 
(Goodrich) — History and grammar slow to appear — History texts used 
primarily as readers — Grammar regarded as intricate and dry — Popular 
fiy-leaf scribblings — Growing sectionalism of the period led to the pub- ^ 
lication of texts in the South — Incompetent teachers, wasteful methods, 
harsh discipline, poor buildings and equipment, of the period — Questions 
for Discussion and Further Study — Bibliography 

IX. REORGANIZATION AFTER THE WAR 306 — 

Reconstruction more destructive than the war to educational resources 
— Led also to inaccurate statements concerning ante-bellum effort for 
schools — The educational influence of the reconstruction period — Con- 
ditions between 1865 and 1867 compared with those between 1867 and 
1876 — Composition and work of reconstruction conventions and legis- 
latures — Agitation of the mixed-school question — Constitutions and 
laws somewhat improved, but the conditions of the period adverse to 
public education growth — Questions for Discussion and Further Study 
— Bibliography 

X. EDUCATION DURING RECONSTRUCTION 337 

For many years schools were forced to struggle for existence — Financial 
difficulties, frequent diversion of school funds. Civil Rights Bill, among 
the obstacles in Virginia — Georgia afflicted with social disorder and up- 
heaval — ^Mixed-school requirement in Louisiana — Bitterness and violence 
in Florida and Mississippi — Schools "literally died of starvation" in 
Arkansas — School system "a nullity and a sham" in Tennessee — Simi- 
lar conditions in Texas — Lack of funds, defective legislation, partisan 
strife, fraud and extravagance, in Alabama and the Carolinas — Slight 



xii PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

CHAPTER PAGE 

promise of improvement in all the States after 1876 — Reaction to the 
reconstruction regime of riot and extravagance — Schools subordinated 
to other interests — Questions for Discussion and Further Study — 
Bibliography 

XI. THE PEABODY FUND AND THE RISE OF CITY SCHOOLS 383 

Beneficial influence of the Peabody Fund — Its primary object — Dis- 
tributed on sound principles — "Free schools for the whole people" its 
motto — West Virginia and the members of the Confederacy the bene- 
ficiaries — The work of the fund in Alabama, in Arkansas, in Florida, 
in Georgia, in Louisiana, in Mississippi — Florida and Mississippi denied 
the benefits of the fund between 1885 and 1893 — The work of the 
fund in the Carolinas and Tennessee, in Texas — Virginia's large share 
in the fund — Influence of the fund — Stimulated local enterprise and 
promoted town and city school systems — Helped to remove hostil- 
ity to the education of the negro — Encouraged training of teachers — 
Tended to remove the bitter spirit of sectionalism — Establishment of 
George Peabody College — Recent development of town and city school 
systems — Questions for Discussion and Further Study — Bibliography 

XII. READJUSTMENT AND THE REAWAKENING .... 415 

Only slight progress of schools between 1876 and 1900 — Poor economic 
conditions, sparsity of population, isolation, depressed condition of the 
people, the curse of politics, among the obstacles — Occasional signs of 
educational interest — New foundations through increased economic 
wealth, rise of a strong middle class, a new race of leaders, and political 
changes — Work of Conference for Education in the South, Southern 
Education Board, and General Education Board — The spirit of reform 
awakened — Considerable progress between 1900 and 1910 — Questions 
for Discussion and Further Study — Bibliography 

XIII. THE PRESENT SYSTEM : ITS TASKS AND TENDENCIES 436 

Slow development in rural education in recent years — Explanation of 
present low educational rank of the Southern States — Administrative 
organization — Tendency to improvement in support, administration, 
courses of study, supervision, and in child-labor, compulsory-attendance, 
health, and public-welfare legislation — Hopeful signs of progress — 
Needed reorganizations— Education of the negro— Important problems 
of rural life and education — The need for intelligent consolidation — 
The demand for wise leadership — Questions for Discussion and Further 
Study — Bibliography 

INDEX • 473 



PUBLIC EDUCATION IN 
THE SOUTH 

CHAPTER I 
EUROPEAN ANTECEDENTS 

Outline of the chapter, i. The principle of universal education has 
evolved through distinct periods of social, political, and economic 
development in the South. 

2. A knowledge of European antecedents and influences prevaiHng 
during the period of colonization is necessary if colonial education is 
to be properly understood. 

3. Economic conditions in England during the colonizing period 
produced unrest and vexatious governmental problems. 

4. Political conditions were likewise unsettled and led to strange 
relations between the rulers on the one hand and Parliament and the 
people on the other. 

5. Religious changes in Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth 
centuries also greatly influenced American colonial life. 

6. In these various changes and conditions are found the principal 
motives for colonization. 

7. Economic interests were powerful in the Southern colonies and 
economic extremes early developed. 

8. As a result the selective idea in education was inevitable in the 
South in the early times. 

9. After 1700, large immigrations of Germans and Scotch-Irish 
came to the South, where their educational influence was extensive. 

10. On the ideals and principles to which the early colonists were 
devoted, educational theories and practices were to be built up and 
were to develop and change as the conditions required. 

11. Every advance in education has been made on the background 
of the past, and present-day tasks in education can be understood only 
through a knowledge of conditions out of which they have evolved. 



\ 



2 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

The growth of the principle of universal education in the 
Southern States is marked by distinct periods in social, political, 
and economic development in that region. The first period was 
that of the transplanting of European traditions and customs, and 
extended from the date of the earliest settlements to near the 
middle of the eighteenth century. During that time the colonists 
were influenced by conditions and practices of the mother coun- 
tries. The second period extended from about 1750 to the fourth 
decade of the nineteenth century. It was distinct for its attempts 
to modify educational practices so as to meet the new conditions 
which were produced by the Revolution and the political begin- 
nings of a new people. During this period very interesting and 
influential educational experiments were made. The third period 
extended from the thirties to the Civil War and was marked by 
the rapid development of Jeffersonian democracy and the steady 
growth of belief in the people. 

The Civil War and reconstruction constituted another period, 
which, though brief, was very distinct because of the widespread 
distress and uncertainty which it produced. The years from 1876 
to the close of the century formed still another period, which has 
become well known for the heroic efforts made during those years 
to build out of the wreck of the old a new civilization, but on 
safer and more permanent educational ideals. Finally, the years 
from 1900 to the present have been significant for the educational 
revival which awakened the entire South shortly after the opening 
of the new century. That awakening was rapidly gaining at the 
outbreak of the World War, which served to draw sharp attention 
to the weaknesses as well as the strength of public educational 
enterprises. In the South, as in other sections of the country, the 
challenge to the public school became clearer and more distinct. 
As a result of the war public education here as elsewhere in the 
United States has begun to show promise of wider and safer 
extension and growth. 

Public education in the South is now distinctively American in 
its essential ideals and character. But the educational customs 



/ 



EUROPEAN ANTECEDENTS 3 

and practices of the colonial period can be understood only in 
view of European antecedents and influences. This is true of all 
the English colonies, but especially true of Virginia and the Caro- 
linas : of Virginia and South Carolina, where the dominating in- 
fluences were, as in England, especially aristocratic ; and somewhat 
true of North Carolina, whose earliest settlers were immigrants 
from Virginia and brought with them some of the educational 
practices of that colony. The general mental attitude of all these 
colonies towards education was therefore much like that of the 
mother country. That attitude is more easily understood by a 
view of conditions in England at the time these colonies were 
settled. 

The population of England at the close of the sixteenth century 
has been variously estimated at from three to live millions, made 
up of two main classes : the self-supporting and independent class 
and the dependent class. The first group was composed of the 
nobility, the higher clergy, knights, country gentlemen, lawyers, 
the lesser clergy, freeholders and farmers, shopkeepers and trades- 
men, and artisans and craftsmen. The dependent group was 
made up of journeymen, apprentices, vagrants, ''thieves and 
sturdy beggars," whose employment, wages, and migration were 
determined by some one of the upper classes. 

At the accession of James I in 1603 probably half the popula- 
tion of England was made up of this dependent class, which was 
very largely produced by certain social and economic changes 
which modified the entire structure of English society before the 
seventeenth century. One of these modifying influences was the 
change from the medieval to the modern land and agricultural 
system. Much of the poverty and vagabondage of the time are 
often attributed to the hard times resulting from inclosures and 
sheep-raising and the consequent eviction of numerous tenants who 
had made a living of tillage, to the destruction of great bands 
of feudal retainers, and to the dissolution of the monasteries. 
Chiefly in these changes may be found the explanation of the 
growth of this dependent class, which came to be such a vexatious 



4 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

governmental problem and of sufficient menace to call for attention 
from Parliament. The problem was finally solved, as far as 
legislative enactment could solve it, by legislation which sought 
to deal with the poor and dependent. 

For many years following the Black Death, which produced 
a scarcity of labor, the wool industry came to be very important. 
The increase in the price of wool was so rapid that by the begin- 
ning of the sixteenth century sheep-raising had become a far more 
profitable industry than farming, and at the same time it de- 
manded fewer laborers. At first no hardship was worked by this 
change ; but in the time of Henry VII and Henry VIII many 
landowners turned their attention to this industry, and the inclo- 
sure into sheep pastures of vast areas which had hitherto been 
used for tillage, furnishing work for many laborers, threw out 
of employment many people whose livelihoods had hitherto 
depended on arable farming. The result was that those who 
had land or money enough to rent and stock it with sheep grew 
richer, while the poorer people, dispossessed of land and rendered 
helpless and inefficient under the changed industrial system, were 
driven out to beg or to steal for a living. Frequently "farmers 
were got rid of either by fraud or force, or tired out with repeated 
wrongs into parting with their property," and when other means 
failed eviction was resorted to. Many evicted farmers were thus 
reduced to a state of pauperism, and whole families were sent on 
the road to live a life of vagrancy. As the peasants increased, 
their economic condition grew more unbearable. There was evi- 
dence of much social discontent. The wrongs of the poorer classes 
found indignant expression in the literature of the period, which 
was often full of protests against the evils of inclosures and the 
consequent depopulation of the rural regions. 

The large bands of retainers had been a more or less lawless 
element throughout the period of feudal power. Feudal armies 
had greatly impoverished many rural regions, especially during 
the Wars of the Roses. During the peace of the Tudor period 
numerous retainers, without wages, became marauders under the 



EUROPEAN ANTECEDENTS 5 

protection of their lords and stole for a living. A statute was 
passed against them near the close of the fifteenth century, and as 
they were dismissed from their masters' protection they became 
capable vagabonds and rogues. 

The problem of unemployment thus became serious. Opportuni- 
ties for work had been decreased in corporate towns by the 
exclusive policy pursued by the guilds. Moreover, the kingdom 
had been subjected to heavy taxation by Henry VIII ; the coinage 
had been so debased by him that Elizabeth's efforts at reform 
were not immediate or thorough enough to save the laboring man 
from its evil consequences ; and the prices of necessary commodi- 
ties doubled and often trebled without any corresponding advance 
in wages. Hundreds were thus forced from the means of a liveli- 
hood ; the needy increased in great numbers, while the means of 
relief were constantly lessening. Even the guild and town corpora- 
tions found it difficult to make provision for their own sick and 
dependent. 

The dissolution of the monasteries also deprived the vagrants 
of certain sources of comfort and relief. Henry VIII held that 
these institutions were dangerous to the new regime, and although 
the monastic authorities might appear tractable and obedient, 
it was feared that they disapproved of the violent measures which 
had terminated papal control in England. Many of the mon- 
asteries were wealthy and held extensive landed estates which 
the aristocracy of the kingdom coveted. Moreover, evidences 
of corruption and of evil living in them, and alleged immoral and 
irreligious motives, seemed to warrant drastic royal action. Ac- 
cordingly, in 1536 Parliament suppressed nearly four hundred 
of those which had an annual income of less than £200, and 
three years later the larger ones were swept away also and their 
possessions added to the king's revenues. In a few years mon- 
asticism practically disappeared from England, and hundreds of 
institutions harboring thousands of monks and nuns ceased to 
exist. The usefulness of the system had already begun to wane, 
and modern society has provided agencies which perform the 



6 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

social services of monasticism far more effectively than they were 
ever performed by moiiasteries and convents. Yet, with the dis- 
solution of these institutions, there disappeared many useful means 
of education and poor relief. 

Finally, the Chantries Act of 1547 completed this royal confisca- 
tion and spoliation of religious endowments. Most of the guilds 
and corporations had funds set apart for providing masses for 
their deceased founders, for chantries, for the comfort and sup- 
port of their infirm and sick members, and for numerous other 
charitable purposes. These foundations supported priests, lent 
money without interest to poor members, apprenticed their chil- 
dren and cared for their widows and orphans, and in numerous 
other ways provided for the education and protection of the un- 
fortunate. The confiscation of these means of education and 
charity told disastrously against the poorer classes. 

These changes greatly increased the number of wanderers and 
vagrants and, at the same time, destroyed many sources of relief. 
Indiscriminate charity had increased the number of idle poor. 
The "open house," kept alike by barons and the clergy ; the men- 
dicant practices of the friars and other religious orders ; the 
habits of the wandering scholar and his A B C shooters and of the 
pious pilgrim who begged his way from shrine to shrine, — all these 
agencies helped to foster a class of beggars whose profession was 
far from undignified and whose activities were by no means dis- 
graceful. These beggars were of many kinds. A contemporary 
account gives two dozen varieties, from the impotent poor to the 
Abraham man, who, like the fool in " King Lear," feigned lunacy 
and begged '^ charity for poor Tom" in the hope of awakening 
the pity of the passers-by. 

Numerous early attempts made to deal with this condition 
sought to repress the evil by severe punishments, but no effective 
relief was afforded until Parliament turned attention to the prob- 
lem. It soon became recognized as necessary for the more 
prosperous members of the community to contribute means to 
care for the dependent members. Collections were made for this 



EUROPEAN ANTECEDENTS 7 

purpose, first in the form of charitable and voluntary offerings, 
but later as compulsory contributions levied by the State, Still 
later it was found that if the "sturdy" beggars and those able to 
do so were to be forced to work, some employment had to be found 
for them. Numerous acts of Parliament in the fifteenth century 
and throughout the first half of the sixteenth, though well in- 
tended, failed to bring relief ; and it was left to the wisdom of 
Elizabeth to place the whole matter of contributions for poor 
relief on a satisfactory basis. 

The problem wa^ finally dealt with in a series of laws which 
undertook to provide a stricter punishment for sturdy beggars 
and to inaugurate a compulsory assessment to aid the deserving 
poor. This was especially true of legislation between 1572 and 
1597, which made more explicit and practicable the directions 
for controlling the bad condition, for collecting and distributing 
the funds for poor relief, and for setting the able-bodied vagrants 
to work. This legislation marked the beginning of the end of 
the free vagabond life of the period, and the principal features 
of the earlier acts were incorporated in the law of 1601, which 
became the real statutory foundation of the poor law and the 
basis of a national system of poor relief. 

For this reason and because of its influence on the practice 
of the colonists, this law is very significant. Under it definite com- 
pulsory contributions were assessed on ratable values for funds 
to relieve the poor and unfortunate, and overseers of the poor were 
appointed with several duties. They were to superintend the dis- 
tribution of relief to the impotent poor, to apprentice the children 
of the poor and see that trades were properly taught them, to 
set to work able-bodied vagrants and beggars, and to attend to 
the general enforcement of the law. While this and similar laws 
were far from educational in intent, nevertheless they became 
the basis of the only training given a very large number of chil- 
dren. It should be noted, however, that the enforcement of these 
acts was put into the hands of local justices who were trained in 
the interpretation and administration of such legislation. 



8 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

Political conditions in England prior to and during its early 
colonizing period should also be noted. During the first forty 
years of the seventeenth century, when immigration to America 
began, the claims of the monarchy were perhaps more exorbitant 
than at any time in English history. For example, it was seditious 
in subjects to dispute what kings and rulers could do in the 
height of their power. And not only was this view held by the 
rulers themselves, but others attributed to them absolute au- 
thority, and their powers thus became real in the lives of their 
subjects. Notable contests between the king and Parliament 
gave the latter slightly larger participation in the government, 
though the conflict became increasingly intense and critical. 
Parliamentary sympathizers relied for their cause more and more 
on the "ancient rights and liberties of the people." Through the 
Petition of Right appeal was made by Parliament to the Great 
Charter and to other declarations of personal liberties ; in 1641 the 
Grand Remonstrance contained such expressions as "the people," 
" the rights of the people," " the liberties of subjects," and many 
rights and privileges were finally incorporated in the Bill of Rights 
in 1689. 

During the contests and while the balance of powers was un- 
settled, American colonization was progressing and distinct ideas 
of civil liberty were brought to the new country. For it was not 
the people of strong royalist spirit who emigrated, but those of 
the middle and lower classes, who were not on very comfortable 
terms with the king ; and among these classes of people the views 
of Parliament were widespread. The same views were very largely 
held also by the Virginia Company, which played such an impor- 
tant part in influencing the colonists. 

Yet unanimity did not exist even among those who left England ; 
and strong as the predilection was among the founders of America 
for self-government and representative institutions, the Old-World 
differences of view were transferred to the colonies and played a part 
in local struggles there. ^ 

1 Cheyney, European Background of American History, chap. xiii. 



EUROPEAN ANTECEDENTS 9 

Local government came very close to the average Englishman 
in the seventeenth century, and as sheriff, justice of the peace, 
churchwarden, or other official he had a very active part in local 
affairs. Certain political institutions and customs controlled 
his actions and influenced his habits and ideas concerning local 
government. 

The sheriff was the historic head of the shire, or county, and 
had numerous and varied duties. The justices of the peace, the 
"men of all work," represented the rural gentry and were very 
influential in English affairs throughout the sixteenth, seventeenth, 
and eighteenth centuries. James I said of them, "At London 
you are like ships in a sea, which show like nothing, but in your 
country villages you are like ships in a river, which look like 
great things." From twenty to sixty of these officers were found 
in each county. The most important duties as a body were 
performed at the "quarter sessions," regularly held in October, in 
midwinter, in spring, and in midsummer. Few interests in human 
life escaped their attention. Up to 1603 nearly three hundred 
statutes had been enacted in which the justices were given juris- 
diction. One of their most important duties was the enforce- 
ment of the apprenticeship and poor laws. The churchwardens, 
whose position and duties were not so ecclesiastical as the 
name implies, were appointed by the justices annually at their 
Easter session, were ex-officio overseers of the poor, and were 
in charge of the relief of the poor. Estimating the costs and 
levying local assessments for the purpose were among their most 
important local duties. 

Certain religious changes in Europe became powerful influences 
in American colonial life also. The Renaissance had affected 
the religious life of all Western Europe. The part of the Church 
in the direction of European affairs began to be questioned by 
the new national rulers ; the right of papal interference be- 
came a matter of serious dispute ; a change appeared in the atti- 
tude of the laity towards the Church ; and there was rapidly 
developing a desire in the lay mind for each individual to be free 



10 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

in his religious life instead of being blindly obedient to ecclesi- 
astical authority. A new belief in the importance of the individual 
appeared in the value which the laity attached to education and 
in the tendency to leave to secular rather than to ecclesiastical 
control the education and care of the poor. Moreover, the English 
Humanists turned their attention to an examination of the 
Church and its teachings and found a great need for religious 
reform. Although their efforts were not fruitless, reform did 
not come directly through them, or as they desired, but through 
Luther and his teaching, which made powerful appeal, especially 
to the sentiment of the German people. These changes had their 
influence in England also. 

When England became a colonizing nation, at the beginning of 
the seventeenth century, there were at least four well-defined 
religious parties among her people. There were the adherents 
of the Established Church, with its prayer book, articles of 
religion, uniformity of service, and the practices and the doctrines 
of the official state church. Anglicanism was the national church, 
just as Catholicism was the church of Spain. At the begin- 
ning of the seventeenth century Anglicanism had for a genera- 
tion been the only religious system in authority in England, and 
it was therefore strongly intrenched through the authority of 
the law and the sanction of patriotic feeling. A second religious 
class was the Catholics, who held allegiance to that religious 
system which claimed the Pope as its earthly head. And from 
the time Henry VIII attacked the supremacy of the Pope and 
the practices of the medieval church, they were faithful to 
Rome in spite of frequent rigorous applications of harsh statutes 
against them. 

Another religious class was the Puritans, who at first protested 
against certain ceremonies and formulas of Anglicanism, but later 
turned from these considerations to the more vital and prac- 
tical question of morals. They believed that the Established 
Church was drifting toward Catholicism. Still another class was 
the "Separatists," or ''Independents," to whom the idea of a 



EUROPEAN ANTECEDENTS ii 

national church was idolatrous, and who believed in the absolute 
independence of each local congregation. 

From 1629 to 1640, during the personal government of Charles 
I, when there were no sessions of Parliament, the Star Chamber, 
the High Commission, and the Privy Council were powerful ad- 
ministrative instruments which were in sympathy with Anglican- 
ism. During this time the Puritans and other dissenting sects 
were greatly oppressed. It was during this period and under this 
regime that the great Puritan migrations to America were made. 
In migrating to the New World the Puritans were doubtless some- 
what influenced by their unfavorable economic conditions at home, 
but they turned to America as a place where religious liberty 
would also be secure. Later on, during the Commonwealth period, 
when the Puritan regime was so distasteful to them, thousands 
of Cavaliers emigrated to Virginia, and between 1649 ^^^ 1669 
the population of that colony increased from fifteen thousand to 
twenty-five thousand. 

The social, economic, political, and religious conditions de- 
scribed were among those from which many of the early colonists 
came. In those conditions may be found the incentives which 
prompted many Englishmen to come to America. But there were 
other motives for colonization. Throughout the sixteenth century 
there were frequent complaints of a rapidly increasing population. 
Class distinctions and unfavorable industrial conditions, working 
painful hardships on the poor and the less prosperous part of 
society, persistently called for relief. Crimes were numerous and 
on the increase in spite of cruel penal legislation. It was a com- 
mon belief that the surplus population would readily flow to the 
New World. Free land was also an attraction ; and the discovery 
of tobacco as a profitable product proved a powerful incentive 
to immigration to Virginia. Many glowing accounts of the colony 
reached England and appealed to the various classes : the restless, 
the impatient, and the adventurous ; those of straitened economic 
circumstances and of restricted social conditions ; the yeoman, 
whose children must always remain yeomen ; those who desired 



12 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

land and the position of gentlemen ; and those to whom the 
avenues of advancement were closed at home, — all these classes 
saw in Virginia attractive social and economic opportunities. 

The force of economic interest was therefore very powerful in 
the Southern colonies. Economic conditions were likewise very 
influential in the development of social institutions. The road to 
wealth and influence lay in agricultural pursuits, where servant 
labor was essential. In practically all the Southern colonies it 
was natural that economic extremes should early develop ; side by 
side with the influential planter class, but in striking contrast to 
it, there grew up the indentured servant class, which constituted 
a great part of the population. The servant was bound for a term 
of from two to seven years to the planter who transported him or 
who had by contract secured control over him. At the end 
of his term of indenture he became a freeman. By the middle 
of the seventeenth century the importation of African slaves was 
also getting to be a profitable industry, and life in Virginia had 
assumed the character which it retained for more than a century. 
There developed, therefore, a distinction between the small land- 
owner and the master of vast estates ; the plantation, more or less 
isolated, but with its abundant necessities and many luxuries of 
life, became the social unit and helped to develop the aristocratic 
spirit. 

With such traditions in such an environment educational prac- 
tices in the Southern colonies were more or less identical with those 
of the mother country. On account of the peculiar religious 
interests in England in the seventeenth century education in most 
of the colonies was given a decidedly religious color, and the 
religious conception and the ecclesiastical domination of education 
were adopted. Where the Puritan influences were most pro- 
nounced there appeared a tendency to provide education for all 
the people ; but in those colonies where the Established Church 
was the dominating religious influence the aristocratic and selective 
idea in education prevailed, and the education of the masses 
of the population was neglected except as it was cared for (as 



EUROPEAN ANTECEDENTS 13 

in England) by the apprenticeship and the poor-law system. The 
Southern colonists, therefore, inherited their educational scheme 
directly from England. They brought with them the idea of the 
Latin grammar school, which was largely classical in the ma- 
terial of instruction and furnished a secondary and higher educa- 
tion for the training of the more prosperous part of society. They 
also brought for the upper classes the tutorial system of educa- 
tion. Thus Virginia, which was the first attempt made at repro- 
ducing the social system, the government, the Established Church, 
and class distinctions of the mother country, reproduced also 
the English educational system. The planter class adopted for 
the education of their families the practice which prevailed in 
England ; and the apprenticeship plan and the poor laws furnished 
a system of industrial training for orphans, the poor, and the 
dependent classes, who were in large measure without the means 
of formal intellectual training. In the main these traditions were 
inherited in the other colonies also. 

Before 1 700 the American colonies were almost entirely English, 
but after that time immigrants came from two other nationalities, 
the German and the Scotch-Irish. These people came in such 
great numbers that in 1775 it was estimated that fully 225,000 
Germans and 385,000 Scotch-Irish were in the colonies which won 
independence from England. European influences had led to this 
emigration also. Religious intolerance, heavy taxes and general 
economic oppression, and the ravages of war were some of the 
causes that induced these people to seek new homes in America. 

The religious differences between the Catholics and the Protes- 
tants, generally known as the Thirty Years' War, constituted 
the most destructive conflict that ever devastated Germany, set- 
ting back the material development of the country nearly two 
centuries. Thousands of villages were wiped out, the country 
was disastrously depopulated, and the few people left by the strug- 
gle were barbarized by losses and sufferings and by the ravages 
and atrocities of the brutalized soldiers. The political questions, 
territorial changes, and religious difficulties were adjusted by the 



14 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

Treaty of Westphalia, but the material losses during the conflict 
had been so extensive that for a half century or more it was im- 
possible to restore the economic development of the country, and 
the moral degeneration which followed the enormous losses of life 
and property was even more distressing. 

This generation of warfare throughout all Germany was fol- 
lowed by another, in which the territorial ambitions of Louis XIV 
led to intermittent invasion of the German lands on the eastern 
border of France. These invasions culminated in 1688, when the 
armies of the French devastated the Rhenish Palatinate. Thou- 
sands of Palatines were driven from burning homes and devastated 
fields. A hope for bettering their earthly condition came in good 
reports from the American colonies under English rule, a hope 
which was made more vivid by such men as William Penn. 
Thousands of homeless and dejected Germans drifted down the 
Rhine, across to England, and thence to America. Many of them 
settled in New York and Pennsylvania, in Maryland and Virginia, 
and in Georgia and the Carolinas. Most of them landed at Phila- 
delphia, but they soon learned of better opportunities in the South, 
and by the middle of the eighteenth century increasing numbers 
were found in that region. They occupied the counties of the 
valley and the piedmont section of Virginia ; the territory along 
the Yadkin and Catawba Rivers and around New Bern and 
Wilmington in North Carolina ; the counties of Orangeburg, Lex- 
ington, Barnwell, Newberry, Abbeville, Edgefield, and Charleston 
in South Carolina ; and a portion of the territory along the 
Savannah River, between Savannah and Augusta. 

The Scotch and the Scotch-Irish came in greater numbers than 
the Germans. The emigration of these people was largely the 
result of the horrors which had accompanied the suppression of 
Ireland in the reign of Elizabeth, the wholesale confiscation of its 
lands, the proscription of its religion, and the plantation among 
the Irish of an alien and hostile people. 

The English nation definitely adopted the principles of the 
Reformation and applied them rigorously to Ireland. All persons 



EUROPEAN ANTECEDENTS 15 

were ordered to attend the Anglican service, under penalty of 
fine ; the mass was prohibited ; the church revenues were taken 
from the priests ; Irish Catholicism was finally proscribed by law ; 
and fear that their religion would never be respected brought fresh 
terror to the Irish people. Moreover, the extraordinary growth 
of the spirit of adventure and the desire for rapid roads to wealth 
led England to adopt a policy of confiscating great tracts of 
fertile Irish lands where gigantic fortunes could be readily and 
easily amassed. Chronic disturbances between the English gov- 
ernment and the Irish chiefs were seized upon as pretexts for 
the confiscations, which were skillfully and systematically made 
through means of severe examination of titles before suborned 
or intimidated juries. Thus, without any compensation the pro- 
prietary rights of many of the natives were lost. 

Then followed the plantation of Ulster, which began in 1611, 
when a large confiscated area was regranted to proprietors who 
were mainly London merchants and the noblemen of the court, 
who introduced tenants from the northern part of England and 
the lowlands of Scotland. Men of Puritan tendencies were not 
reluctant to emigrate to Ireland, and as a result, for two decades 
of the seventeenth century, a large Presbyterian element was in- 
troduced into Ulster. Anglicanism was the legalized state church 
in Ireland, and the religion of the newcomers was not acknowl- 
edged or respected. Moreover, the industrial interests of Ulster 
were subordinated to those of England. The bitterness of theo- 
logical animosity greatly increased, and soon other evils appeared. 

In time a feverish restlessness pervaded Ireland, and the 
murmurs of discontent and social unrest foretold an approaching 
rebellion. Property rights were less secure than ever, all religious 
worship except the Anglican was made illegal, and religious 
animosities became more bitter. Rebellion broke out in 1641, 
and a general expulsion of the English was accompanied by 
disastrous barbarities. The rebellion was finally put down, but 
not until nearly half a million people had perished by the sword, 
by plague, or by an artificially produced famine which followed. 



1 6 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

Conditions showed but slow improvement towards the close of the 
century. The navigation acts excluded Ireland from the ad- 
vantages of colonial trade, industries were discouraged and 
crippled by prohibitive taxes, and the commercial legislation of 
England practically destroyed the wool and linen manufacturers. 
In addition to these economic disadvantages a form of religious 
persecution appeared after 1689. As a result of this combined 
economic and religious oppression and disadvantage thousands of 
these people emigrated and formed the largest body of European 
immigrants to America. Like the Germans, many of the Scotch- 
Irish finally settled in the South. 

After the opening of the eighteenth century German and 
Scotch-Irish immigrants came to the Southern colonies in rather 
large numbers. The later educational influence of these people 
will be noted elsewhere in this study. For the present it is 
necessary merely to point out that wherever they settled, churches 
and schoolhouses were established almost immediately thereafter. 
Their schools were usually taught by the ministers of the local 
congregations. The school interests of the Scotch-Irish were 
especially strong. In the South, as elsewhere, they were the 
first to open classical schools, and for half a century or more 
their work was powerful for its influence on the religious and 
educational life of the South. 

The causes or motives which led to colonization appear in the 
conditions described in the foregoing pages. Among them were the 
spirit of adventure, the desire for material wealth, the unrest 
and discontent produced by economic disadvantage and political 
confusion, and the insecurity of religious beliefs. The sixteenth 
and seventeenth centuries were times of oppressive economic con- 
ditions and intense religious restlessness and political disturbances. 
Moreover, England's resources were slender, and colonization was 
thought of as a means of obtaining relief from the persistent 
dangers of pauperism. Colonizing ventures, therefore, came to be 
viewed largely as commercial undertakings. For example, the 
Puritan migration to New England was stimulated not only by 



EUROPEAN ANTECEDENTS 17 

religious but by economic and political causes, and the Southern 
colonies were almost entirely the outgrowth of the trading spirit 
and the influence of economic distress in the mother country. 

It should be noted that the earliest settlers came to the South 
from those countries and peoples that had embraced Protestantism 
in some form. It was natural, therefore, that their first edu- 
cational efforts should originate as undertakings of philanthropy 
or of the Church. But they also brought with them certain social, 
political, and economic ideals which later were to have a decided 
influence. On the ideals and principles to which they were de- 
voted were to be built up the educational theories and practices 
which have since developed as changing conditions have required. 
The early educational interests of the colonists are to be viewed, 
therefore, in the light of the European conditions out of which 
they came. ^Moreover, many of the present theories and practices 
have their origin in those conditions and in colonial influences. 
For this reason the student of present educational conditions 
is likely to ask if colonial theories and practices could have been 
different under the peculiar circumstances of settlement and of 
political and economic influence, and if the lessons of those earlier 
times are valuable for the conditions and tasks of today. 

These questions become important in a consideration of public 
education in the South. In the following pages an attempt is 
made to answer them. For the present it is sufficient to call the 
attention of the student to the stress and struggle of the strange 
conditions in which the colonists found themselves. The hard- 
ships and deprivations of the time taxed the faith and the heroism 
of the newcomers, but made them resourceful in dealing with 
circumstances which did not naturally promote immediate educa- 
tional organization. Many of the colonists saw in education 
something very essential to their well-being. Some of them saw 
a close kinship between education and religion, and all of them 
were either intimately or remotely acquainted with the educa- 
tional ideals and practices which prevailed in their old homes in 
Europe. Many of those practices were naturally transplanted 



1 8 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

here, some continued to exist in part not only throughout the 
colonial days but far into the national period, while others have 
been modified from time to time by changing conditions. A study 
of present conditions, however, points clearly to the fact that 
every advance in education in the South, as elsewhere, has been 
made on the background of the past. The historical element 
therefore becomes increasingly important in the effort of the 
student, the teacher, and the administrator to test the validity 
of the practices or tendencies of present-day educational work. 
The practical parts of such work cannot be understood sympa- 
thetically except through an acquaintance with the conditions 
out of which they have grown and with the ideals or theories 
on which they have developed. Nor can present-day problems 
or tasks in education be intelligently and safely analyzed except 
through a knowledge of those practices which have evolved from 
the conditions of the past. 



QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION AND FURTHER STUDY 

1. Explain the motives for the principal streams of settlers to the 
South during the early colonizing period. 

2. The seventeenth century has been described as the period of the 
"transit of civilization." Explain the meaning of this. 

3. What was the state of education for the lower classes in those 
countries from which the Southern colonists came? for the so-called 
higher classes ? 

4. Why were the early educational efforts in the South the under- 
takings of philanthropy or of the Church ? 

5. In what way were such efforts the result of the Protestant Revolt 
in European countries ? 

6. Why is it difficult for a common-school system to develop in 
countries or communities where class distinctions are marked ? 

7. Compare the early settlers in the South with those of the other 
colonies in origin, in motives for settlement, and in religious, political, 
and economic interests. 



EUROPEAN ANTECEDENTS 19 

8. What influences were most powerful with the Southern colo- 
nists — the economic, political, or religious? Why? 

9. How were the most potent influences of these colonists likely 
to reflect themselves in subsequent educational theory and practice? 

10. What were the foundations on which education in the South 
was likely to be developed ? 

11. Were the new conditions into which the colonists came such as to 
promote or to delay educational organization? Explain. 

12. What is the evidence that public education in the South is now 
essentially American in ideal and form ? 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Aydelotte, "Elizabethan Rogues and Vagabonds," in Oxford Historical 
and Literary Studies, Vol. I. Oxford, 1913. Bruce, Institutional History 
of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century, 2 vols. New York, 1910. Campbell, 
The Puritan in Holland, England, and America, 2 vols. New York, 1893. 
Cheyney, European Background of American History (The American 
Nation Series). New York, 1904. Eggleston, The Transit of Civilization. 
New York, 1901. Faust, The German Element in the United States, 

2 vols. Boston, 1909. FiSKE, Old Virginia and her Neighbors, 2 vols. 
Boston, 1898. Hanna, The Scotch-Irish, 2 vols. New York, 1902. Knight, 
"The Evolution of Public Education in Virginia," in the Sewanee Review, 
Vol. XXIV, No. I. Knight, Public School Education in North Carolina. 
Boston, 1916. Lecky, A History of Ireland in the Eighteenth Century, 
S vols. New York, 1893. Nicholls, A History of the English Poor Law, 

3 vols. New York and London, 1898-1899. Sandys, " Education," in 
Shakespeare's England, Vol. I. Oxford University Press, 1916. Tyler, 
England in America (The American Nation Series). New York, 1904. 
Whibley, "Rogues and Vagabonds," in Shakespeare's England, Vol. II. 
Oxford University Press, 191 6. 



CHAPTER II 

COLONIAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 

Outline of the chapter, i. From Virginia and South Carolina, 
which were more nearly like England than the other colonies, the 
most powerful educational and political influences in Southern Hfe 
emanated during the colonial period. 

2. Educational practices in the Southern colonies are to be ex- 
plained, however, not only in the customs of England but also in other 
influences. 

3. The plantation system, indentured servants, negro slavery, and 
the maintenance of the Established Church as a part of the social 
system tended to delay the growth of a healthy interest in schools 
and community cooperation. 

4. Indirectly, however, educational interests were somewhat pro- 
moted through the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in 
Foreign Parts, an auxiliary of the Established Church, which aided in 
establishing schools and in supplying teachers, textbooks, and libraries. 
Charity schools became numerous in all the Southern colonies, through 
missionary and philanthropic agencies, which stimulated the benevo- 
lence of public-spirited people. 

• 5. Evidence of creditable interest in certain kinds of educational 
facihties may be seen from the wills of the period, in numerous en- 
dowments, bequests, and philanthropic societies, and in the founding 
of schools for the education of poor children. 

6. Evidence of slight educational interest on the part of the 
Assemblies appeared in most of the colonies. 

7. Other evidences of colonial culture may be seen in the private 
libraries of the time, in the collections of books, and in the establish- 
ment of printing presses and the publication of newspapers. 

8. Schools were not yet regarded as a function of the State, but 
education was not neglected, and opportunities for educational training 
were larger than is commonly thought. 

g. Educational facilities were not so extensive in the South as in 
the North, because of differences in climate and in economic and other 

20 



COLONIAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 21 

conditions. The South has always been rural and agricultural, and the 
principle of cooperation has been slow to operate in that region. 

10. The educational theories and practices of the South during colo- 
nial times are to be understood, therefore, just as present-day educa- 
tional problems, in the light of the dominating economic, political, and 
social conditions of the period. 

The principal points of English settlement in what is now the 
Southern States were Jamestown in Virginia, and Charleston in 
South Carolina. From these two colonies the most powerful edu- 
cational and political influences in Southern life emanated during 
the colonial period. They were more nearly like the mother 
country than any of the other American colonies ; in them ap- 
peared an attempt of England to reproduce herself on American 
soil. Educationally this attempt appeared in a transplanting of 
those traditions and practices which prevailed in England in the 
seventeenth century. In the main these practices consisted of a 
classical training (the tutorial system or education in England) 
for the well-to-do, and provision for the old English industrial 
training, through the poor-law and apprenticeship system, for 
the poorer classes. Moreover, some of the earlier settlers were 
familiar with educational provision through the means of endow- 
ments and foundations, which formed in England a favorite and 
popular means of educational support. In some of the colonies 
these endowments formed evidence of early educational interest 
as well as of the transference of English custom to America. 

Educational practices in the Southern colonies had their ex- 
planation not alone, however, in the traditions and customs of 
the mother country. These influences were indeed powerful, as 
was also the political philosophy of seventeenth-century England, 
"that the great body of the people were to obey and not to 
govern, and that the social status of unborn generations was 
already fixed." This theory was not without its influence in the 
English colonies. But in addition to these influences other con- 
ditions and agencies were potent in determining the educational 
practices in the South before the revolutionary period. 



22 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

One of the most influential of these conditions was the planta- 
tion system. The fertile soil and the mild climate lent them- 
selves unstintingly to farming and to the development of extensive 
agricultural pursuits. The rivers and smaller streams served as 
convenient highways and often as the only means of communica- 
tion. Along these the earliest settlers took up large tracts of land. 
From the beginning, therefore, the tendency was necessarily 
toward rural rather than urban life. With no towns, no diversity 
of pursuits, and with a population widely dispersed over vast 
acreages, compact communities were impossible, and local com- 
munity interest in schools and the means of education was 
naturally slow to show itself. ^ Through the agricultural and 
plantation system class distinctions developed and became another 
barrier to the growth of a healthy interest in public education, 
as that term is known today. With the introduction of white 
indentured servants and of negro slaves (who became useful and 
profitable in communities where agriculture was such a promising 
pursuit) these distinctions began early to develop, became greatly 
pronounced, and persisted in most of the Southern States, though 
they were most noticeable perhaps in South Carolina and Virginia. 

The conditional servitude of white persons, under indentures or 
contracts, developed early in Virginia a servile class which came 
to be an important element in Southern society. As a rule these 
servants were transported convicts, political offenders, and orphans 
or other children kidnaped by adventurers and sold to the South- 
ern planters, who bound them to labor for a term of years. 
Throughout the seventeenth century the importation of white 
servants was encouraged, but they seem to have been more 
numerous in Virginia than in any other colony. As late as 1698, 
however. South Carolina enacted a law encouraging the importa- 
tion of white servants between the ages of sixteen and forty and 
prescribing their term of service. 

The institution of negro slavery extended gradually and like- 
wise became influential in Southern life. By the middle of the 
eighteenth century African slaves constituted fully half the 



COLONIAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 23 

population of Virginia. Almost from its origin South Carolina 
was essentially an agricultural and planting colony with slave 
labor, and by the revolutionary period two thirds of its popula- 
tion consisted of negroes. The two main classes were the planters 
and the slaves, the latter constituting the foundation and the main 
support of the colony's entire industrial system. The indentured 
servant class was not so numerous as in Virginia, and, with the 
exception of the Germans and the Scotch-Irish, the small land- 
owners and the poor white people were not numerous. By 1765 
there was a comparatively large body of African slaves in North 
Carolina, but the white indentured servants were few. Large 
plantations were not so numerous as in Virginia or South Carolina, 
and the mass of the population were small landowners. The 
blacks became more or less numerous in Georgia, and after it 
became a royal colony in 1752 the indentured white servants 
differed in almost no respect from those of the other colonies 
except perhaps in smaller numbers. 

The maintenance of the Established Church as a part of the 
social system was also a contributing cause of the slow educa- 
tional growth in the South, where it had large power in the life of 
the people. In Virginia and the Carolinas the English Church was 
provided for by the charters, formally established by legislative 
enactment later, and remained established until the revolutionary 
period. The case was different in Georgia, however, which opened 
only two score years before the revolt from the mother country. 
The charter of that colony in 1732 guaranteed liberty of conscience 
and the free exercise of religion to all persons except Papists. 
Quarrels between the trustees and the colonists resulted twenty 
years later in the abrogation of the charter and the royal as- 
sumption of the government, and the English Church was im- 
mediately established in the colony. It was destined, however, 
to a short life. 

Elaborate legislative measures were early enacted in Virginia 
for the support of the Establishment, and these were rigidly en- 
forced. The Church grew more intolerant and hostile to liberty 



24 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

as the population increased, and proved a source of increasing an- 
noyance and burden to the people for many years prior to the 
Revolution. Quakers were punished in the pillory "for wearing 
hats in church"; juries of matrons were appointed "to fumble 
over the bodies of old women for 'witch marks'"; under the law 
heretics could be burned ; denial of the doctrine of the Trinity 
was legally punishable by three years' imprisonment ; Unitarians 
could be deprived of the custody of their children ; the Establish- 
ment became unwilling to allow any religious services except its 
own ; nonconformists were forced to contribute to the support 
of a religion which they did not profess ; and arrest and imprison- 
ment of dissenters became prevalent just before the Revolution. 
Moreover, the development of a spiritual tyranny bred among the 
people a keen sense of injustice, and many of them came to hate 
the Establishment. 

In North Carolina the Established Church was less powerful 
than in Virginia, although its establishment was provided for in 
the early charters of the colony. Religious toleration was never- 
theless guaranteed, and this provision attracted numerous settlers. 
The great majority of the people were dissenters, and there grew 
up a widespread and popular unwillingness among them to be 
taxed to support a religion not their own. In the main the same 
was true of South Carolina, though the Establishment was more 
strongly intrenched there. Even in that colony, however, the 
injustice of taxing the majority of the people to support the 
religion of the minority created dissatisfaction and caused various 
religious questions to become involved in many political struggles. 

With the dawn of the Revolution and the national period meas- 
ures were adopted which severed the Church from the State. 
In Virginia this separation formed a part of the reform program 
of Jefferson and his colaborers which was set in motion soon after 
independence was gained. The bill of rights of the Constitution of 
1776 declared that "all men are equally entitled to the free exer- 
cise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience," but 
beyond this that instrument contained no religious provisions. In 



COLONIAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 25 

1777 Jefferson prepared a bill establishing religious freedom, but it 
was not reported to the Assembly until 1779 and was not enacted 
into law until 1785. The act was so comprehensive, however, 
as to deserve a place among "the great charters of human 
liberty." 

In North Carolina the Establishment "died of inanition." The 
Vestry Act of 1768 was the last legislative attempt to perpetuate 
an endowed church in the colony at the expense of other religious 
denominations, and with the constitution of 1776 the divorce 
of the Church from the State became complete. The Establish- 
ment gradually weakened in South Carolina also, which, under the 
constitution of 1778, freely tolerated all persons and religious 
denominations "who acknowledge that there is one God and a 
future State of reward and punishment, and that God is publicly to 
be worshiped," and guaranteed equal religious and civil privileges 
to all Protestant denominations. The constitution of Georgia 
in 1777 conceded full religious freedom to all persons, "provided 
it be not repugnant to the peace and safety of the State." 

Before the enactment of these measures to sever the Church 
from the State, however, frequent religious dissensions had served 
to delay cooperation in education. Moreover, the need for schools 
did not appear to be keenly felt by those in authority. The clergy, 
often described as a "picturesque" class in colonial times, had 
constituted in large measure the only class which professed learn- 
ing ; and many of the colonial schoolmasters had been the mis- 
sionaries, ministers, or lay readers of the Church. Many of the 
clergy no doubt had influence as representatives of a great and 
powerful institution ; but their picturesqueness was often due more 
to their manifold shortcomings and vices than to their virtues or 
the extent of their good works. Furthermore, the reproduction in 
some of the colonies of the tyrannical Schism Act of 1714, which 
required the license of the Bishop of London as a qualification for 
giving instruction in any form, hindered educational development 
by making it difficult for dissenters to provide educational facilities 
for their own children. , 



2 6 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

With agriculture as the mainstay of the Southern colonists and 
with the large plantations in great measure self-sustaining com- 
munities, the planters soon became economically independent. 
The reciprocity of needs and services, so essential to the develop- 
ment of community enterprises, was not widely known. With the 
industrial system of the South resting on the institution of slavery, 
political power was for the most part in the hands of the planters, 
sharp social distinctions were inevitable, and the South naturally 
became aristocratic. This condition tended to retard the growth 
of a strong middle class, with which free public-school systems 
always originate. Moreover, the Establishment, through its 
methods, its claims, and its arrogance, and the ecclesiastical evils 
which followed it, delayed the growth of a pure religious liberty, 
as that principle has become embedded in the American mind, 
and delayed also the appearance of the proper conception of 
education as a vital community interest. 

In spite of the ecclesiastical evils of the time educational 
interests were at least indirectly promoted through the work of the 
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, an 
auxiliary of the Established Church. This organization was one 
of the most prominent of the charitable and religious agencies at 
work among the Anglican colonies in the seventeenth century, and 
through it better-trained ministers were supplied, churches were 
established and revived, and provision was made for training 
children in the doctrines of the Church. In all the English colonies 
in the South except Virginia the Society established missions, 
libraries, and schools and supported school-teachers, but its work 
was most extensive in South Carolina, where it began in 1705. 

The purpose of all the schools set up by this agency was essen- 
tially moral and religious. The curriculum showed a distinctly 
religious character, and the instructions to the schoolmasters 
were injunctions to piety and holy living. Primers, hornbooks, 
ABC books, and spellers were used for the beginners, but the 
more advanced children studied the church catechism, the Psalter, 
the Book of Common Prayer, the Bible, and ''The Whole Duty of 



COLONIAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 27 

Man." Th e purpo se of education under the Society was " not only 
to fit the young for the business of Hfe, but to make them moral 
and religious beings." The children were taught "to believe and 
to live as Christians, to read truly and distinctly, to write a 
plain and legible hand in order to fit them for useful employ- 
ments, with as much arithmetic as shall be necessary to the same , 
purpose." The educational work of the Society probably fur- 
nished the nearest approach to public-school organization found 
in the South before the Revolution. 

The Society also established libraries in the colonies. Many of 
these were set up through the immediate influence of Thomas 
Bray, founder and one of the leaders of the organization and later 
the Bishop of London's commissary in Maryland. He came to 
America at the beginning of the eighteenth century, and the 
establishment of parish or public libraries soon became a part of 
his larger scheme of educational and religious activity. The 
colonial legislatures cooperated in this work and sought to en- 
courage it. As early as 1700 the Assembly of South Carolina 
passed an act for securing and preserving a library at Charleston, 
which is said to have been the first public library established in 
America. It originally contained more than two hundred volumes, 
which were largely of a religious character, and two years later 
further additions were made to it. The only library which 
Dr. Bray gave to North Carolina was established at Bath, where 
it seems to have been properly cared for and used. In 1715 the 
Assembly passed the only act which looked to the encouragement 
of learning during the proprietary period and which concerned 
the preservation of this library. The act was very similar to the 
earlier one passed in South Carolina. 

These and other evidences of educational interest and culture 
in the Southern colonies were in part stimulated in the manner 
just described. Through these agencies the charity-school idea 
prevailed very widely, and charity schools of the Church became 
somewhat numerous in the South before the close of the colonial 
period. In many cases also there was a remarkable eagerness 



2 8 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

among the colonists to extend to their children and those of their 
neighbors opportunities to acquire some kind of an education, how- 
ever meager it might be. Evidence of that desire may be seen in 
the last wills and testaments of the period and in the numerous 
endowments or foundations for schools. Even here, however, may 
be seen the element of charity or philanthropy which was in- 
herited from England and encouraged by the work of the Church 
through its missionary and charitable agencies in the colonies — a 
work which stimulated the benevolence of public-spirited persons. 

The wills of the period not only show an early interest in 
education but serve as evidence that various educational facili- 
ties were in existence, through the tutorial system or private 
schools. As early as 1640 John Waltham, of Accomac County, 
Virginia, directed that his son should be placed, at the age of six 
years, under the instruction of a " good and godlye schoolmaster " 
and remain under his teacher's guidance until he reached the age 
of eighteen. The expenses of this instruction were to be provided 
from the income of the property inherited by the boy. Nicholas 
Granger, of the same county, provided for the education of his 
daughter in the same manner. Similar provisions were made in 
the Carolinas and in Georgia. In some cases money was set 
aside by the direction of wills for the education of relatives ; some- 
times the proceeds of the labor of slaves were stipulated as means 
of furnishing educational facilities; often the property set aside 
for definite educational purposes was cattle, and sometimes it was 
tobacco or other produce. 

Endowments or foundations for the support of charity or free 
schools were likewise numerous. The English origin and an- 
tecedents of the representative Southern colonists explain attempts 
to provide schools by this means. As a partial remedy for the 
wretched conditions of the working classes, there sprang up in 
England numerous charity schools intended in the main for the 
children of the poor. Many of them were endowed, while some 
of them were supported by private donations. Many of the 
colonists were acquainted with this educational custom, which had 



COLONIAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 29 

a natural growth in America, where it furnished more or less ex- 
tensive means of acquiring an elementary education. 

The earliest example of this type of school is found in Vir- 
ginia in 1619-1620, when the sum of £550 was given to the 
treasurer of the London Company for the purpose of erecting a 
school for furnishing instruction to a "convenient number" of 
Indian youth, who were to be early taught reading and the Chris- 
tian doctrines and later some useful handicraft. Another attempt 
was made about the same time for the purpose of founding a 
school for the white children of Virginia ; it was to be called the 
East India School. Plans were made for opening both of these 
schools, but they were interrupted by the Indian massacre of 
1622 and were never established. 

The plans were influential in establishing other schools, how- 
ever, which are now known in American educational history as the 
Symms School and the Eaton School. By the will of Benjamin 
Symms, which was dated February, 1634-1635, valuable property 
was set apart to establish a free school in Elizabeth City County, 
Virginia, for the purpose of furnishing the means of free education 
to the children of that county. Eight years later the Assembly 
enacted legislation to carry out the plans of the benefactor, and the 
act showed "the high appreciation of education prevailing in Vir- 
ginia in these early times, and the gratitude felt for every bene- 
faction looking to its advancement." This bequest preceded John 
Harvard's famous gift for the institution which bears his name ; and 
the school founded on the Symms endowment has been called "the 
earliest foundation for free education made in English America by 
a citizen of an English colony." The example of Symms was soon 
followed by Thomas Eaton, a physician of the same county, who 
gave five hundred acres of land and other property as a founda- 
tion of a free school similar to the one established by Symms. 
Both schools had long and useful careers as separate institutions 
and provided educational facilities for a large number of chil- 
dren. In 1805 they were combined and incorporated as Hampden 
Academy. In 1852 the fund from these endowments amounted to 



30 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

$10,000, and it is still preserved separate from the school fund 
of the State. It is probable that these schools became models 
for other communities in Virginia and that other schools of a 
similar character were founded there during colonial times. 

Examples of endowments for educational purposes, of a some- 
what later period, are found in North Carolina. In 1744 James 
Winwright, of Carteret County, left by his will certain valuable 
property in Beaufort and fifty pounds sterling for the support of 
a school in that town. Provision was made for a schoolhouse 
and for the teacher's residence ; but the master was not obliged to 
take under his care any pupils "imposed on him" by the trustees 
who were provided for in the will, but he was to be free to teach 
such and as many as he thought convenient and to receive such 
compensation for his teaching "as he and the persons tendering 
them shall agree." Ten years later James Innes, of New Hanover 
County, bequeathed a plantation, some slaves, horses, and cattle, 
some books, and £100 sterling for the use of a free school "for 
the benefit of the youth of North Carolina." A school was finally 
chartered in Wilmington on this foundation. 

Similar educational interest appeared in South Carolina, al- 
though only slight mention is made of it before 17 10. In that 
year the Assembly passed an act "founding and erecting a free 
school for the use of the inhabitants of South Carolina," the pre- 
amble of which stated that "several charitable and well disposed 
Christians, by their last wills and testaments, have given several 
sums of money for the founding of a free school, but no person 
as yet is authorized to take the charge and care of erecting a 
free school, according to the intent of the donors." The act named 
the trustees and empowered them to select a site and to build a 
schoolhouse and dwelling houses "and buildings for the accom- 
modation of the several masters and teachers." Provision was 
also made for a master, who was required to show ability to teach 
Greek and Latin and "the useful parts of mathematics." Other 
legacies were given for the purpose of providing for the educa- 
tion of poor children. Among these endowments were those of 



COLONIAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 31 

Dave Williams, for a school in Charleston ; John Whitmarsh, for 
a school in St. Paul's Parish ; James Child, for a free school and 
master's residence in St. John's Parish ; and Richard Ludlam, 
for a school for poor children in St. James's Parish. The primary 
object of the Ludlam bounty was to instruct children in the 
Christian doctrines and ''such other things as are suitable to their 
capacity." For nearly a century this endowment supported four 
schools, and as late as the Civil War it amounted to quite a 
substantial sum. 

Perhaps the most interesting and valuable bequest for educa- 
tion in South Carolina during the colonial period was that of Rich- 
ard Beresford, who left a large sum in 1722 for educating poor 
children in St. Thomas's Parish. The school set up on this 
foundation continued to render a creditable service until the Rev- 
olution, which interrupted the work of the school and caused a 
loss of a part of the fund. The institution began in 1783, how- 
ever, and continued until 1861, when the Civil War broke into 
its operation. The school was later reopened and had a healthy 
life until near the close of the nineteenth century. Up to that 
time the fund had been carefully managed and had gradually 
increased. 

These were examples of individual philanthropy in behalf of 
education in colonial South Carolina. Certain societies were also 
interested in providing and promoting educational facilities in that 
colony. The most novel of these was the Winyaw Indigo So- 
ciety, which was founded about 1 740 for the purpose of improving 
the cultivation of indigo, one of the principal staples of the time. 
The society was formed largely as a "convivial club" by certain 
planters who met in Georgetown on the first Friday in each month 
for the purpose of discussing the latest London news, "to hold 
high discourse over the growth and prosperity of the indigo plant, 
and to refresh the inner man, and so to keep up to a proper 
standard the endearing ties of social life by imbibing freely of the 
inevitable bowl of punch." The manner in which the members of 
the society became interested in education is worth noting : 



32 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

From the initiation fees and annual contributions it came to pass 
that about the year 1753 the exchequer became plethoric of gold, and 
the hearts of our founders overflowed with the milk of human kind- 
ness. . . . And hence it became the question of the hour, to what 
good purpose shall we devote our surplus funds? As the tale runs, 
the discussion was brief, pertinent, and solid. At the close of it the 
presiding ofificer called on the members to fill their glasses ; he wished 
to close the debate by a definite proposition ; if it met their approba- 
tion, each member would signify it by emptying his glass. He said : 
"There may be intellectual food which the present state of society is 
not fit to partake of ; to lay such before it would be as absurd as to 
give a quadrant to an Indian ; but knowledge is indeed as necessary as 
light, and ought to be as common as water and as free as air. It has 
been wisely ordered that light should have no color, water no taste, and 
air no odor ; so indeed, knowledge should be equally pure and without 
admixture of creed or cant. I move, therefore, that the surplus funds 
in the treasury be devoted to the establishment of an independent 
charity school for the poor." The meeting rose to its feet. The 
glasses were each turned down without soiling the linen, and the 
Winyaw Indigo Society was established. Such, in brief, was the origin 
of a society whose school has been the school for all the country 
lying between Charleston and the North Carolina line for more 
than one hundred years. In its infancy it supplied the place of primary 
school, high school, grammar school, and collegiate institute. The 
rich and the poor alike drank from this fountain of knowledge, and the 
farmer, the planter, the mechanic, the artisan, the general of armies, 
lawyers, doctors, priests, senators, and governors of States, have each 
looked back to the Winyaw Indigo Society as the grand source of 
their success or other distinction. To many it was the only source of 
education. Here they began, here they ended that disciplinary course 
which was their only preparation for the stern conflicts of life.^ 

From 1756 until 1861 the school founded by this society had 
a very successful career, and twenty-five or more children were 
annually educated in it. The annual dues of the members of 
the Society, private benefactions, and the proceeds of escheated 
lands greatly increased the available income, and many poor 

iProm the Rules of the Winyaw Indigo Society, Charleston, 1874. See 
also Meriwether, The History of Higher Education in South Carolina. 



COLONIAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 33 

children were maintained as well as educated. The trustees al- 
lowed the principal to receive a certain number of pay scholars 
in addition to the pupils for whom the school was originally de- 
signed, and for teaching these he was allowed an extra salary 
of S600 in addition to his annual salary of $1000. The school 
became well known and was patronized by the people of a large 
area of country, but the Civil War practically destroyed the value 
of the invested funds, and the school building was occupied for 
over a year by the Federal troops. 

During this time its library was scattered and some of the books 
were never recovered. When the organization was allowed pos- 
session of the building again funds were raised as a beginning 
of a new endowment. A part of this was used for making repairs 
on the building, and the balance was expended for deficiencies in 
teachers' salaries. But the work of the school continued from 
1866 to 1886, during which time it educated ten poor children 
annually. At the latter date it was incorporated as one of the 
public graded schools of the State, but the Society continued its 
educational work for many years after 1886. About 1892 or 
1893, however, "it relinquished control of the graded school 
system, which it had previously held under a special statute, 
and gave the use of its building to the school trustees, free of 
rent. This arrangement lasted for a few years, when the school 
district erected a building of its own. Since that time the Society 
has done no educational work, but still retains its existence and 
organization."^ 

Other societies in South Carolina fostered education as a part 
of a general plan of charity during the colonial period. One of 
the oldest and the most prominent of these was the South Carolina 
Society of Charleston. This was organized in 1737 as the " French 
Club" by a group of French Protestants who met weekly for 
mutual advantage. Later the members agreed upon a weekly 
contribution as a fund to be used to relieve the distress of any of 

iFrom a statement made by Walter Hazard, Esq., of Georgetown, 
South Carolina, in a letter to the author, November 11, 191 6. 



34 PUBLIC EDUCATION L\ THE SOUTH 

their number, and the organization became known as the ''Two- 
bit Club." In 1 75 1 it was incorporated as the South CaroHna 
Society and existed as a semieducational corporation for almost 
a century. Teachers were employed and poor children of both 
sexes were educated and, in some cases, maintained. Xo children 
under eight years of age were admitted and none were retained 
beyond the age of fourteen, the girls not beyond twelve. When 
children were dismissed their places were immediately filled by 
the admission of others. With the rise of the public-school system 
in Charleston, after 1880, the educational feature of the Society 
was discontinued, and its funds were devoted entirely to the 
support of the families of its members. At that time it had a 
substantial endowment and owned creditable buildings. 

The idea of charitable education was more or less natural in 
colonial Georgia also, because of the philanthropic motives of 
its organization. This settlement was made in 1732 under the 
direction of James Oglethorpe, a "gentleman of unblemished 
character, brave, generous, and humane." He was chairman of a 
committee in the English House of Commons appointed to visit 
the prisons and to examine penal conditions and to suggest re- 
forms. As a result of the investigation, which revealed gross 
injustice and mismanagement, but also through his public spirit 
and charitable design, there began a movement to alleviate the 
''miserable national grievance" and to purify prison manage- 
ment. While Oglethorpe was engaged in this investigation the 
idea of an American colony occurred to him as a means of afford- 
ing opportunity to the honestly unfortunate to retrieve their 
fortunes and to begin new lives. The colony of Georgia was the 
result of the benevolent plan. 

The earliest educational effort in that colony was in the form 
of mission schools, which were established by the Moravians for 
the purpose of furnishing religious instruction to the Indians. 
These schools had only a short life, however, and came to an end 
in 1738, when the Moravian settlement moved to Pennsylvania. 
But when the original towns of the colony were laid out large 



COLONIAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 35 

tracts of land were set apart by the trustees for church and 
school support. Schools were maintained by the Society for the 
Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, by the trustees, and 
by charitable friends of the colony. These were found in Savan- 
nah and in other places. In 1 754 Georgia became a royal province, 
and an agreement was made by which the crown promised to 
continue the ''allowance heretofore usually given by the trustees 
to a minister and two schoolmasters." This agreement was main- 
tained until the Revolution and is " the only case on record where 
the Parliament of England supported schools in the colonies." 

The most notable example of educational effort in Georgia be- 
fore it acquired statehood, however, was the work of the Bethesda 
Orphan House, which was established by Georg e White&eld and 
James Habersham in 1739. The idea of the institution was sug- 
gested to Whitefield by Charles Wesley, who convinced the evan- 
gelist of the need of such a school, the plan of which seems to have 
been an imitation of Francke's remarkable educational and char- 
itable institution in Halle. Whitefield secured a large tract of land 
from the trustees of the colony and then began preaching and 
soliciting funds for the erection of buildings. His eft'orts were very 
successful and he was soon able to open the school.^ 

Much interest centered in the institution, which soon became 
very useful in the maintenance and education of orphans and 
poor children, who were taught such trades as carpentering, weav- 
ing, and tailoring, as well as the elements of a literary education. 
In 1764 Whitefield sought to convert the institution into "a sem- 
inary of literature and academical learning," and for that purpose 
memorialized the provincial authorities. They approved the plan, 
and Whitefield went to England to secure the charter from the 
crown, but his petition was refused. He then hoped to convert 
Bethesda into an academy similar in plan to Franklin's at 
Philadelphia, but this plan failed also, and he died in 1770 

^The reader will probably recall, from the "Autobiography," the amus- 
ing story of Whitefield's success in inducing Benjanain Franklin to empty 
his pockets to aid the Bethesda Orphan House. 



36 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

without ever fully realizing the favorite ambition of his life. 
Shortly afterwards the Orphan House was burned, and although 
it was rebuilt and work in it resumed, its active work soon 
ceased. In 1791 the estate passed into the hands of trustees, and 
in 1808 it was sold and settled by legislative authority and the 
proceeds were distributed to certain charitable institutions in 
Savannah. A part was given to the Savannah Poorhouse and 
Hospital Society, a part to the Union Society of Savannah, 
and a part to increase the funds of Chatham Academy on con- 
dition that it would support and educate five orphan children free 
of charge. 

There is some evidence of educational interest on the part of 
the colonial assemblies, though the encouragement of schools by 
legislative assistance was not so great as could have been desired. 
In 1 61 9 and in 1624 the London Company encouraged efforts in 
Virginia to establish institutions of learning, but both efforts 
ended in failure. In 1660 the Assembly passed acts which looked 
to founding an educational institution, and the governor and 
council headed the list of subscriptions of funds for its support. , 
The plan failed, however, and it was not until 1692 that efforts to 
secure a college in the colony were rewarded. In that year William 
and Mary College was founded by royal charter, and gifts of 
lands and money were made and the rights of certain colonial taxes 
allowed for its support. Donations were also made by planters, 
and considerable support came from the Assembly, which gave 
the college liberal assistance and protection throughout the col- 
onial period. The institution soon became the center of learning 
for the colony and has had an almost unbroken career of educa- 
tional success and usefulness. Other acts of educational legisla- 
tion in colonial Virginia dealt in the main with the practice of 
apprenticing orphans and poor children, which prevailed in the 
other colonies as well. 

In North Carolina the first legislative action in behalf of edu- 
cation was to secure the provincial library mentioned above. As 
in Virginia, legislation was also enacted in behalf of the poor, 



COLONIAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 37 

and occasionally there was passed an act of more direct educa- 
tional importance. Gabriel Johnston became the royal governor 
of North Carolina in 1734, and during the eighteen years which 
he served in that position he showed unusual interest in schools 
and education. In 1736 he made a notable appeal to the As- 
sembly on this subject, and that body responded with some 
sympathy, but nothing was done until 1745. In that year an 
act was passed to build a schoolhouse in Edenton. There is no 
evidence, however, that the house was ever built. Other attempts 
were made from this time until the Revolution. In 1762 the 
Reverend James Reed preached a sermon before the Assembly on 
the importance of education, which was printed and distributed at 
public expense. This was perhaps the first public expenditure for 
education ever made in North Carolina. In 1766 provision was 
made for establishing a school in New Bern, and with the revenue 
from an import duty on all rum and other liquors brought into 
the Neuse River for seven years ten poor children were to be 
educated in it. This was the first school incorporated by the 
Assembly in North Carolina and likewise the first educational 
law of any importance passed in the colony. In 1767 and 1768 
efforts were made to establish a school in Edenton, but attempted 
legislation on the subject failed temporarily when the Assembly 
opposed the enforcement of the Schism Act. In 1771, as a result 
of interest in the establishment of a ''public seminary for the 
education of youth" in the western part of the colony, a charter 
was granted to Queen's INIuseum, or Queen's College, but the 
charter was later twice repealed by the king and council on account 
of the Schism Act. The school seemed to flourish without a 
charter, however, until 1775, when the name was changed to 
Liberty Hall Academy, and two years later it received a charter 
from the State. 

Besides the legislation to secure the provincial library estab- 
lished in Charleston in 1700 and acts concerning the poor, a few 
other educational acts were passed in South Carolina during the 
colonial period. Among these was an act empowering the justices 



38 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

of the county and precinct courts to purchase lands and erect free 
schools in each county or precinct and to assess the expenses 
of such schools upon the lands and slaves of each jurisdiction. 
Masters "well skilled in the Latin tongue" were to be appointed 
and were to receive an annual salary of £25. Ten poor children 
were to be taught free of charge in each school, provided they were 
sent by the justices. This law was passed largely through the 
interest of Governor Francis Nicholson, who was very eager to 
provide educational facilities for the colony. Later, in response to 
a petition from several citizens in St. George's Parish, an act au- 
thorized the establishment of a free school at Dorchester. This 
act has considerable historical interest, in that it provided for the 
education of the children of that place because "their parents 
are so well inclined to have them instructed in grammar and other 
liberal arts and sciences, and other useful learning" and because 
they were unable to send their children to the free school at 
Charleston. 

In addition to the educational agencies already noted, other 
evidences of colonial culture appeared in the libraries of the period 
and in the importance attached to books. _Ma.ny of the colonists 
brought books and libraries with them, and interest in collections 
extended very widely. Valuable collections were built up in 
Virginia in the seventeenth century. The wills of the time often 
contained special bequests of books ; and inventories showed 
libraries and books to have a prominent place in the esteem of 
carpenters, blacksmiths, mechanics, and other laborers, as well as 
of the more prosperous colonists. 

Similar interest was in evidence in South Carolina during the 
early colonial period. The South Carolina Library Society had a 
wide influence and a long life of usefulness, and throughout the 
larger part of the eighteenth century libraries were formed "at 
many of the court houses, as central places of deposit for the 
districts," and enlarged and extended a taste for literature and 
reading. Many of the planters had respectable libraries, and 
the booksellers of the period spoke of the sale of books as 



COLONIAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 39 

"progressively increasing," Schoolbooks and volumes that *' treat 
of religion" appeared to be the greatest in demand. 

In North Carolina libraries afforded opportunity for culti- 
vating a taste for books and reading and for fostering an educa- 
tional sentiment. Among the most notable private libraries were 
the collections of Edward Moseley and of Samuel Johnston, who 
for many years were leading figures in the colony. Moseley's 
collection at Edenton numbered four hundred volumes, many 
of which were folios and bound in sheep. Johnston's library 
consisted of nearly five hundred volumes of history and poli- 
tics, biography, travels, philosophy, essays, and miscellaneous 
literature, encyclopedias, grammars, poetry, and drama. In the 
eastern part of the colony there were many other more or less 
important collections ; and in the western section, where many 
Scotch and Scotch-Irish emigrated after 1746, a great many 
private libraries were built up. This evidence of educational 
interest began to appear in Georgia also prior to the Revolution.^ 

Although the colonists in the South had a rather wide interest 
in many cultural and educational agencies, conditions did not 
promote the early establishment of printing presses and news- 
papers in that region. Printing presses were set up and newspapers 
founded earlier in New England, for example, very largely because 
of the different conditions of settlement and of government, and 
other influences which promoted educational facilities generally in 
that section. It may be helpful to note here the dates of the 
establishment of the press and of the earliest newspapers in the 
various colonies. 

The printing press was permanently set up in Massachusetts 
in 1638 ; Pennsylvania in 1686 ; New York in 1693 ; Connecticut 
in 1709; Maryland in 1726; South Carolina in 1730; Rhode 
Island in 1732; Virginia in 1733; North Carolina in 1749; 
New Jersey in 1751 ; New Hampshire in 1756; Delaware in 
1 761 ; Georgia in 1762. There is evidence that there was a press 

1 Knight, Public School Education in North Carolina. . 



40 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

in Virginia as early as 1681, but it seems to have been speedily 
prohibited, and a permanent press was not established in that 
colony until 1733. The earliest newspapers in the colonies ap- 
peared as follows: the Boston News Letter, at Boston, in 1704; 
the American Weekly Mercury, at Philadelphia, in 17 19; the 
New York Gazette, at New York, in 1725 ; the Maryland Gazette, 
at Annapolis, in 1727 ; the Rhode Island Gazette, at Newport, in 
1732; the South Carolina Gazette, at Charleston, in 1732; the 
Virginia Gazette, at Williamsburg, in 1736; the Connecticut 
Gazette, at New Haven, in 1755 ; the North Carolina Gazette, at 
New Bern, in 1755 ; the New Hampshire Gazette, at Portsmouth, 
in 1756; the Wilmington Courant, at Wilmington, Delaware, in 
1762 ; the Georgia Gazette, at Savannah, in 1763 ; and the New 
Jersey Gazette, at Burlington, in 1777.^ 

It will be seen from this general statement that education in 
the South during colonial days was by no means neglected by 
the colonists themselves, although governmental provision for 
schools was not extensive. Schools were not yet regarded, how- 
ever, as a function of the State. The Southern colonies thus 
officially reflected that indifference to the education of the masses 
which prevailed in England during that time. Practically the 
only interest of the government in education appeared in the 
policy of apprenticing or binding out orphans and poor children 
under colonial legislation which was inherited from England, and 
the training of such children in trades, handicrafts, or agricultural 
occupations. It should be kept in mind, however, that oppor- 
tunities for education in colonial times were larger than is 
commonly known. In addition to the charity schools and the 
endowed free schools already mentioned, other means were pro- 
vided by which the various classes of the colonists could receive 
educational training. Chief among these were the tutorial sys- 
tem, education in Europe, the community or ''old field schools," 

^See Thomas, The History of Printing in America (Vol. I, pp. 330-352 ; 
Vol. II, pp. 163-174), and Weeks, The Press of North Carolina in the 
Eighteenth Century. 



COLONIAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 41 

and (for the less prosperous part of society especially) the poor 
laws and the apprenticeship system, which is treated in another 
chapter. 

Private tutors in the homes of the planters furnished a highly 
satisfactory and a more or less effective means of supplying edu- 
cational facilities for the more prosperous of the colonists in Vir- 
ginia and South Carolina and, to some extent, in North Carolina 
and Georgia. This custom was directly inherited from England, 
where it had developed before the colonization of America. It was 
especially suited to the plantation system of the South. The 
wealthy planters employed tutors for their children from among 
the candidates for orders in the Church, who were often educated 
and cultured. Frequently, in Virginia at least, the tutors came 
from the indentured servant class, which included many cultivated 
Scotchmen who had thus sought to escape the unwholesome con- 
ditions at home. Education in England or on the Continent was 
likewise a popular educational practice among the wealthy col- 
onists in spite of its inconvenience and obstacles. This was a 
practice among Virginians even in the seventeenth century, 
and later it was more or less extensive in the other Southern 
colonies also. 

Previous to 1775 there were numerous ministers of the Church 
of England in South Carolina, many of whom engaged as tutors 
in addition to their clerical duties. From 1733 to 1774 more than 
four hundred advertisements relating to schools and schoolmasters 
appeared in the South Carolina Gazette, which was published in 
Charleston ; and it appears that during these years several hundred 
persons, in addition to the ministers, were engaged in the colony 
as tutors, schoolmasters, and schoolmistresses. Similar advertise- 
ments appeared in newspapers in Virginia and North Carolina and 
to a less extent in Georgia during the colonial period. 

During these years and even later many children were edu- 
cated in community schools, or what later came to be called ''old 
field schools." These were set up at convenient points by the 
people of the various neighborhoods as private or community 



42 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

enterprises. Now and then a community or old field school was 
probably conducted at the teacher's residence, but most frequently 
they were found in some neglected or abandoned old field, from 
which they acquired their name. In many cases, no doubt, some 
of these schools grew into rather pretentious institutions and were 
often called academies.^ The course of study usually consisted 
of reading, writing, and arithmetic, though occasionally advanced 
subjects were taught. Many of the early teachers were the local 
clergymen or lay readers of the Church, who thus sought to 
supplement their salaries by the tuition fees which were charged 
for instruction. The earlier teachers were generally required to 
hold licenses, either from the Bishop of London or by authority 
of the governor of the colony, and the more or less strict ad- 
herence to this rule doubtless somewhat decreased educational 
opportunities for the earlier dissenters. 

But educational facilities were not so extensive in the South as 
in the North, and the reasons are not difficult to find. In the 
North the climate was rigorous and the winters very severe, the 
Indians were hostile, and the colonists were naturally forced into 
compact communities, or towns, which were organized almost 
simultaneously with the early settlements. The people were com- 
pelled to unite and to cooperate for purposes of common defense 
and community welfare. Moreover, the Northern colonies enjoyed 
a political and religious freedom which the Southern colonies were 
denied by the proprietary or royal authorities. And in the South 
the climate was mild, the soil was fertile, the Indians were com- 
paratively friendly, and there was no necessity for the organization 
of compact groups or communities. The colonists, therefore, nat- 
urally tended toward scattered settlements, and for the most 
part individual families took up large plantations which to 
a very great extent soon became independent social units. The 
principle of reciprocal obligations and of community coopera- 
tion through exchange of needs and services did not promptly 
establish itself. 

iSee Chapter IV. 



COLONIAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 43 

This fact helps measurably to explain the South's apparently 
slow response to the advance educational movement which had 
an earlier and fuller influence in other sections of the country. 
The South has always been rural and is yet essentially an agri- 
cultural region. It still has comparatively few large cities. And 
it has been in such centers that the principle of cooperation has 
always been most intelligently applied in the solution of common 
questions and in the promotion of common interests. In such com- 
pact communities the people early learned to cooperate in a man- 
ner not yet fully understood by the rural and sparsely settled 
sections, of which the South has always been so largely composed. 
For this reason rural education has been and is yet the most insist- 
ent and immediately urgent task before the people of that region. 
'l Quite a few of the teachers in the early schools of the South 
were earnest men of creditable training, though most of them were 
doubtless indifferently prepared for their work. In the main they 
were itinerant and migratory. Those who taught in the schools of 
the Established Church were licensed by some governing authority, 
usually the Bishop of London or the colonial governors. The pri- 
vate teachers knew nothing of a license or a certificate to teach. 
The schoolhouses were primitive and often built of logs. They 
were furnished with crude benches and had no equipment such as 
the modern school has. Methods of teaching were poor and waste- 
ful, and group instruction was practically unknown. Discipline 
was harsh, and the teacher was considered a hard and severe task- 
master. Hearing lessons and keeping order consumed all his time.^ 
There was nothing attractive about the colonial school in the South. 
The curriculum was meager, and textbooks were few. The 
books were printed in England and were mainly religious and 
moral in purpose ; few secular textbooks were in use in the col- 
onies before the beginning of the national period. Hornbooks, 
primers, the Psalter, the Bible, and the Catechism were the texts 
commonly found in the charity schools and the Church schools. 
These were used primarily as reading books and as means of giv- 
ing religious instruction. The celebrated "New England Primer," 



o' 



44 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

which was so widely used in other sections, found a place in the 
South also and maintained it for a number of years. In addition 
to reading, the subjects of writing and elementary arithmetic and 
spelling were taught to some extent. 

The educational theories and practices in the Southern colonies 
are to be largely explained, therefore, just as our present-day 
theories and practices, by the dominating social, political, and 
economic conditions of the period. For these are primarily the 
factors which promote or retard the growth of educational effort, 
^hat, then, were the conditions which delayed the acceptance of 
the theory that education is a normal function of the govern- 
ment ? Why was there failure to unite early on a plan for organ- 
izing, supporting, and directing systems of schools in which all 
children could be educated together successfully and without 
prejudice? What problems of those early times have persisted 
until the present ? 

The answers to these questions will be sought in the follow- 
ing chapters. For the present, however, the student should re- 
member that there was a domination of religious and of aristocratic 
conceptions of education which quite naturally gave the color of 
charity to any educational effort of the government. This element 
of charity was destined to become a stubborn obstacle to future 
public educational development. In theory the ideals of political 
democracy began to appear early and were strongly revealing 
themselves by the beginning of the national period, but the 
aristocratic conceptions and practices in education, so strong and 
wide in colonial times, continued to prevail until very recently as 
inheritances from the past. 

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION AND FURTHER STUDY 

1. What conditions were most influential in determining educa- 
tional practices in the South before the Revolutionary War ? 

2. What were the obstacles in the way of a healthy development of 
public education in the Southern colonies ? 

3. Study the attitude of England toward colonial education. 



COLONIAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 45 

4. Compare educational theory and practice in the South and in 
the other colonies and explain the differences that appear. 

5. Compare education in colonial times and now in regard to aim, 
curriculum, methods of teaching, textbooks,, school equipment, prep- 
aration of teachers, and the licensing or certification of teachers. 

6. Show how the Established Church aided education in the South 
in the colonial period. In what way did it serve as a retarding 
influence ? 

7. Explain the domination of the aristocratic conception of edu- 
cation which prevailed in the South. 

8. Explain the fact that the colonial assemblies or legislatures gave 
only slight attention to education. 

9. Why were charity schools, or schools in which poor children 
were taught, a popular form of educational effort in the South? 

10. Show how the social system of the South tended to delay the 
growth of community cooperation in schools. 

11. Discuss the various evidences of culture in the South during 
the colonial period. 

12. Make a study of (a) private libraries, (b) public libraries, 
(c) newspapers, (d) booksellers, in the South before 1775. 

13. Make a study of peculiar school practices in the Southern 
colonies before the Revolutionary War. 

14. Note any problems or practices in present-day school work 
which have their origin in colonial conditions. 

15. Why is rural education the most important single educational 
problem facing the South at this time? 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Barnard, The American Journal of Education, 30 vols. Hartford, 1855- 
1881. -Brown, The Making of our Middle Schools. New York, 1903. Bruce, 
Economic History of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century, 2 vols. New 
York, 1907. "Sruce, Institutional History of Virginia in the Seventeenth 
Century, 2 vols. New York, 1910. Clews, Educational Legislation and 
Administration of the Colonial Governments. New York, 1S99. Cobb, The 
Rise of Religious Liberty in America. New York, 1902. Cooper, The Stat- 
utes at Large of South Carolina, 5 vols. Columbia, 1836-1838. Cummings, 
The Early Schools of Methodism. New York, 1886. Dalcho, An Historical 
Account of the Protestant Episcopal Church in South Carolina. Charleston, 



46 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

1820. Davis, "A Sketch of Education in South Carolina," in South Caro- 
lina : Resources and Population, Institutions and Industries. Charleston, 
1883. Grimk^, The Public Laws of South Carolina. Philadelphia, 1790. 
Heatwole, a History of Education in Virginia. New York, 1916. Hening, 
Statutes of Virginia, 13. vols. New York, Philadelphia, and Richmond, 
1819-1823. Hewatt, An Historical Account of the Rise and Progress of 
the Colonies of South Carolina and Georgia, 2 vols. London, 1774. 
Humphreys, An Historical Account of the Incorporated Society for the 
Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. London, 1733. Kemp, The 
Support of Schools in Colonial New York by the Society for the Propaga- 
tion of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. New York, 1912. Knight, Public 
School Education in North Carolina. Boston, 1916. Knight, The Academy 
Movement in the South. Chapel Hill, 1920. Leach, English Schools at the 
Reformation. London, 1896. McCrady, Education in South Carolina. 
Charleston, 1883. McCrady, History of South Carolina under the Pro- 
prietary Government, 1670-1719. New York, 1897. McCrady, South Carolina 
under the Royal Government, 1 719-1776. New York, 1899. Maddox, The 
Free School Idea in Virginia before the Civil War. New York, 1918. Mont- 
morency, Progress of Education in England. London, 1904. Montmorency, 
State Intervention in English Education. Cambridge, 1902. Nicholls, 
A History of the English Poor Law, 3 vols. New York and London, 1898- 
1899. Ramsay, History of South Carolina, 2 vols. Charleston, 1809. Scud- 
der, Public Libraries a Hundred Years Ago (in a special report on libraries 
in the United States, published by the United States Bureau of Education). 
Washington, 1876. Thomas, History of Printing in America, 2 vols. Albany, 
1874. Trott, The Laws of the Province of South Carolina. Charleston, 
1736. Watson, English Grammar Schools to 1660. Cambridge, 1908. Weeks, 
The Press of North Carolina in the Eighteenth Century. Brooklyn, 1891. 



CHAPTER III 

PUBLIC EDUCATION OF DEPENDENTS: THE 
APPRENTICESHIP SYSTEM 

Outline of the chapter, i. Although public education of every kind 
is now recognized as the obligation of the State, the principle of 
universal education has only slowly gained practical application. The 
difference between this principle and the application of it is illustrated 
by the early apprenticeship laws and practices. 

2. The apprenticeship system sought to provide a certain training 
for poor and dependent children. It was inherited from England and 
became general in the South during the colonial period and even later. 

3. The principal features of the EngHsh law and practice were 
included in colonial legislation in the South. 

4. The early apprenticeship laws in Virginia were based directly 
on the well-known English law of 1601. Later, legislation on the sub- 
ject was elaborated and improved in Virginia, and by the Revolution 
the duties were transferred from the Church to the State. The 
principal features of the colonial legislation were retained throughout 
the nineteenth century and to recent times. 

5. Legislation and practices in Virginia were copied in the colony 
of North Carolina, the educational features being practically the same 
and remaining substantially unchanged until the present. 

6. Similar legislation was enacted in South Carolina, in Georgia, in 
Tennessee, in Louisiana, in Mississippi, in Alabama, in Arkansas, in 
Florida, and in Texas, and, with occasional slight revisions, have re- 
mained practically the same as originally formed. 

7. The principal features of the system as found in the South and 
the agencies for its administration had educational significance. 

8. The purposes of the system, its lessons for present-day problems 
of dehnquency and dependency, and the relation to modern public- 
welfare work have value for students and teachers today. 

9. The educational significance of the problem of neglected children 
may be seen in the duties of the school and the teacher in advancing 
the principle of educational opportunity for all. 

47 



48 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

Public education of every kind, whether elementary, secondary, 
higher, vocational, recreational, oj* corrective in character, is now 
well-nigh universally accepted as the obligation of the State. That 
it is the function of the State to provide opportunities for the 
adequate and safe education and training of all her citizens for 
useful, successful, and self-respecting activities is likewise ac- 
cepted. For education is now regarded as the principal means of 
promoting public well-being, and these two principles are there- 
fore fundamental to the welfare of democratic society; but 
although somewhat early accepted in theory, it is surprising to 
find that their practical application has always been slow and 
that the difficulties in the way of their extension to new conditions 
and new problems are even now numerous and stubborn, just as 
in earlier times. 

This wide difference between a principle of social growth and 
the practical application of it in community cooperation finds 
a somewhat striking illustration in the early effort of the gov- 
erning bodies to control and care for the poor and dependent 
children in the Southern colonies. That effort found expression 
in the laws dealing with apprenticeship and in the practices 
prevailing under them. Such legislation was early enacted in 
response to the needs and desires of the communities or colonies 
and under the influence of traditional or inherited ideals of the 
colonists. Theoretically, or in principle, the laws and practices 
were humanitarian, religious or philanthropic, moral or educa- 
tional, economic, industrial, or vocational in purpose. Perhaps in 
actual practice the economic aspect of the apprenticeship system 
was strongest in its influence. For while it appears that the 
colonies were eager to afford some educational opportunity for the 
poor and dependent children, a study of the actual practices 
built up on the theories and laws of apprenticeship shows that 
those in authority were perhaps more nearly interested in the 
industrial or economic features of the system than in the educa- 
tional advantages which it showed promise of offering. On the 
other hand, however, the apprenticeship system served to aid a 



PUBLIC EDUCATION OF DEPENDENTS 49 

large number of dependent children in colonial times and to 
stimulate a wholesome attitude toward those who otherwise 
lacked opportunities for being brought up properly. Moreover, 
in that early attitude toward the poor and dependent is to be 
found a basis for the full extension of the principle of universal 
education, now viewed as so fundamental in American life. For 
although it is a long way from the early apprenticeship laws 
to present-day legislation for delinquent and neglected children, 
there appear to be direct relations between the former and 
the latter means for the promotion of the common good. The 
purpose of this chapter, therefore, is to point out the essential 
features of the old apprenticeship system and to note its educa- 
tional significance for those present-day laws and practices which 
look to intelligent public assistance, through rational, properly 
organized, and directed plans, for promoting the general welfare of 
the State. 

On account of the peculiar social, political, and economic con- 
ditions mentioned in the preceding chapter, the principal means 
of providing educational facilities in the South during the colonial 
period were not to be public but private in character. Few if 
any organized public schools, as the term is known today, were 
in existence there at that time, and few of those children who 
received even the most rudimentary education received it in 
organized educational institutions. There were doubtless many 
schools, however, of one kind or another, of which there is no 
record and whose existence it would be difficult to prove. And 
there were other educational agencies than schools for supplying 
instruction. \ One of these was family instruction, or education 
in the home, and was found in those families that felt the need 
and the responsibility for training their own children. But this 
means of teaching naturally varied in quality and quantity. 
Another agency was that of the apprenticeship practices, which 
prevailed widely and for many years, for the purpose of providing 
a training for orphans, poor children, and children born out of 
wedlock. The adoption of this system showed that the colonists 



50 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

felt the necessity of making provision for the education of such 
children and for their training in some trade, handicraft, or in 
agricultural occupations. 

The apprenticeship system of training was common through- 
out the South and developed into a modified form of compulsory 
education during the early period. It was transplanted directly 
from England, where it had served useful purposes. As noted in 
Chapter I, the problem of the unemployed and of the poor in 
England in the sixteenth century came to be dealt with by a series 
of laws which undertook to provide a stricter punishment for 
sturdy beggars and to inaugurate a compulsory assessment to aid 
the deserving poor. It was also noted that legislation enacted 
near the close of that century made explicit and practicable the 
directions for controlling this condition by a systematic collection 
and distribution of funds for the relief of the poor and by setting 
the able-bodied vagrants to work. The principal features of that 
legislation were incorporated in the famous law of 1601, which 
became the real statutory foundation of the poor law and the 
basis of a national system of poor relief. Its influence on the 
practices of the English colonists was very significant. Under 
the authority of this act definite compulsory contributions were 
assessed on ratable values for funds to relieve the poor, and 
'' overseers of the poor" were appointed to superintend the 
distribution of relief, to apprentice orphans and the children of 
the poor, and to see that trades were properly taught to them. 
The law of 1601 and similar acts were not primarily educational 
in intent, but they became the basis of the only vocational 
training given a large number of children. The early colonists 
knew the need and were trained in the interpretation and admin- 
istration of such legislation, and the custom was quite naturally 
transplanted to America. 

This system of training gained a unique and important place 
in education in the South. But in order to understand the popular 
attitude toward the class of people whom it was intended to pro- 
vide for and to protect, it is necessary to consider that education 



PUBLIC EDUCATION OF DEPENDENTS 51 

is a term of varying meaning. The term now generally means an 
expansion of the mental faculties through a specific organized 
course of a more or less literary nature. For the more prosperous 
part of society a ''certain tincture of letters" has always been 
regarded as essential, but a broad formal literary training has 
not always been held as entirely necessary for the humbler classes. 
A popular and traditional view has been that an extensive lit- 
erary education was not indispensable to the poor youth of the 
community. Moreover, the parents or guardians of such youth 
have often appeared more concerned about a practical training 
of their children or wards in those occupations and crafts through 
which they were later to maintain themselves than they were 
about mere "book learning." In the so-called apprenticeship 
system, therefore, a very important form of educational effort 
appeared in the South during the colonial period. 

Under the famous English law of 1601, on which colonial 
practices were generally based, the churchwardens of every parish 
and a varying number of "substantial householders" thereof were 
nominated annually by the local justices of the peace as "overseers 
of the poor." These officers were required to give attention to 
setting to work all the poor children whose parents were unable 
19 maintain them, and to raise by taxation materials and " compe- 
tent sums of money" for apprenticing such children. The over- 
seers were to meet monthly on Sunday afternoon "after divine 
service" to give attention to their duties, when they were to render 
account of all moneys and materials received by them and of 
"all things concerning their said office." Penalties were prescribed 
for every case of negligence or default on the part of the overseers, 
and imprisonment was the punishment for those who refused to 
account. Whenever the justices found the inhabitants of any 
parish unable to relieve their poor the officers were required to 
tax any other parishes in " the hundred where the said parish is." 
In case the hundred was regarded as unable to bear the tax, 
the justices at their quarter sessions were to rate and assess 
other parishes in the county for the purposes of the law. Persons 



52 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

refusing to pay their assessments for poor relief saw their property- 
sold for the rate required by the law. 

Perhaps the most important duties of the churchwardens and 
overseers of the poor were to bind as apprentices the children 
affected by this act, the males until they were twenty-four years 
of age and the females until the age of twenty-one or the time of 
their marriage. But they were also required to have houses built 
on any waste or common in the parish, at the general charge of 
the parish, as habitations for the poor. Powers similar to those 
given to justices of the peace were also given to officers of towns 
and corporations. Justices in the county and officers in the towns 
who failed to nominate regularly the overseers of the poor "shall 
lose and forfeit for every such default five pounds. . . ." 

One of the first apprenticeship laws was enacted in Virginia in 
1643. It was based on the English law of 1601 and had an 
interesting educational aspect : 

Whereas there hath been the general suffering of the colony that 
the orphans of divers deceased persons have been very much abused 
and prejudiced in their estates by the negligence of overseers and 
guardians of such orphans ; Be it therefore enacted and confirmed, 
. . . And all overseers and guardians of such orphans are enjoined by 
the authority aforesaid [county courts] to educate and instruct them 
according to their best endeavors in Christian religion and in rudi- 
ments of learning, and to provide for them necessaries according to the 
competence of their estates. 

Further legislation was enacted in Virginia in 1646 and showed 
that in spite of a difference in local conditions the legislation 
and practices of the mother country were transplanted to that 
colony : 

Whereas sundry laws and statutes by act of Parliament established, 
have with great wisdom ordained, for the better education. of youth in 
honest and profitable trades and manufactures, as also to avoid sloth 
and idleness wherewith such young children are easily corrupted, as 
also relief of such parents whose poverty extends not to give them 
breeding, that the justices of the peace should, at their discretion, 



PUBLIC EDUCATION OF DEPENDENTS 53 

bind out children to tradesmen or husbandmen to be brought up in 
some good and lawful calling. And whereas God Almighty, among his 
many other blessings, hath vouchsafed increase of children to this 
colony, who now are multiplied to a considerable number, who if in- 
structed in good and lawful trades, may much improve the honor and 
reputation of the country, and no less their own good and their 
parents comfort : But forasmuch as for the most part, the parents 
either through fond indulgence or perverse obstinacy, are most averse 
and unwilling to part with their children. Be it therefore enacted by 
authority of this Grand Assembly, according to the aforesaid laudable 
custom in the Kingdom of England, that the commissioners of the 
several counties respectively do, at their discretion, make choice of 
two children in each county at the age of eight or seven years at the 
least, either male or female, which are to be sent up to James City 
between this and June next to be employed in the public flax houses 
under such master and mistress as shall be there appointed in carding, 
knitting and spinning. And that the said children be furnished from 
the said county with six barrels of corn, two coverlets, or one rug and 
one blanket, one bed, one wooden bowl or tray, two pewter spoons, 
a sow shote of six months old, two laying hens, with convenient 
apparel both linen and woolen, with hose and shoes. And for the 
better provision of housing for the same children, it is enacted that 
there be two houses built by the first of April next of forty feet long 
apiece with good and substantial timber, the houses to be twenty foot 
broad apiece, eight foot high in the pitch and a stack of brick chim- 
neys standing in the midst of each house, and that they be lofted 
with sawn boards and made with convenient partitions. And it is 
further thought fit that the commissioners have caution not to take 
up any children but from such parents who by reason of their poverty 
are disabled to maintain and educate them. Be it hkewise agreed 
that the Governor hath agreed with the Assembly for the sum of 
10,000 lbs. of tobacco to be paid him the next crop, to build and finish 
the said house in manner and form before expressed. 

Just how extensively or effectively this law was executed the ac- 
cessible documents do not indicate, but it remained the legislation 
dealing with the control of the poor until 1672. In that year the 
justices were ordered to put the laws of England against vagrant 
and idle persons in strict execution ; and the county courts were 



54 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

empowered and authorized to apprentice to tradesmen all children 
whose parents were unable to bring them up properly, the males 
until they were twenty-one years old and the females until they 
were eighteen. The churchwardens were strictly enjoined to render 
annually to the orphans' court an account of all children in their 
parishes to whom the law applied. 

The law dealing with poor children and providing for their 
bringing up was gradually elaborated in the colony of Virginia. 
By an act of 1705 it was provided that when the estate of any 
orphan was so small that no person would maintain him for 
the profits thereof, such orphan was to be apprenticed until 
he was twenty-one years of age, for the purpose of learning a 
trade. His master was "obliged to teach him to read and write; 
and at the expiration of this servitude, to pay and allow him in 
like manner as is appointed for servants, by indenture or custom." 
Here the relation between the apprenticeship system and formal 
education begins to reveal itself. To teach an orphan or poor child 
a trade or art was no longer considered the only duty the master 
legally owed his apprentice. Mere maintenance by the master was 
not sufficient ; provision for formal literary instruction, however 
meager, was required, as may be seen in the language of the 
law, "obliged to teach him to read and write." A growing con- 
sciousness on the subject of education and training for the less 
fortunate children was appearing. 

In 1727 it became lawful for the churchwardens, upon certifi- 
cate from the court, to bind as apprentices the children of parents 
who were incapable of taking due care of their education and 
training in Christian principles. The children were to be ap- 
prenticed for such a term and under such covenants as were 
usual and customary or as the law directed in the case of orphan 
children. The paternalistic character of apprenticeship legislation, 
which formerly seems to have applied especially to poor orphans, 
now appeared in the laws dealing with the children of poor parents. 
The tendency was to regard such children as belonging to the 
governing authority and as being entitled, by reason of such 



PUBLIC EDUCATION OF DEPENDENTS 55 

relationship, to the training and instruction necessary for main- 
taining themselves on reaching maturity. Supplementary legisla- 
tion later required that all apprentices should faithfully serve 
their term of apprenticeship, because "the taking of apprentices, 
and bringing them up, and instructing them to be skilful in the 
trades, arts, mysteries, or occupations, to which they are bound, 
will be very beneficial to such apprentices, and increase the num- 
ber of artificers in the colony." The economic importance of the 
apprenticeship system was, therefore, evident to the colonists. 

In 1748 another act was passed on the subject which had con- 
siderable educational significance. Whenever the profits of an 
orphan's estate were insufficient to maintain him he was to be 
bound apprentice to some tradesman, merchant, mariner, or other 
person approved by the court until the age of twenty-one years. 
Under like conditions a girl was to be apprenticed to some suitable 
trade or employment until the age of eighteen. The master or 
mistress of such apprentice was to provide him or her ''diet, 
clothes, lodgings, and accommodations fit and necessary," and 
was to teach or cause him or her to be taught "to read and write" ; 
and at the expiration of the apprenticeship to pay such ap- 
prentice "the like allowance as is by law appointed for servants 
by indenture or custom." 

The laws dealing with the poor were gradually elaborated and 
the duties and responsibilities of the churchwardens in making 
provisions for the poor were increased. By legislation of 1755 
these officers were required to keep a register of all the poor in 
their parishes and to send certain poor people to the " poorhouses," 
which the vestries were empowered to build and to furnish with 
"cotton, hemp and flax or other necessary materials, implements 
or things, for setting the poor to work," Moreover, an allowance 
was to be levied in the regular parish levies for the education of 
the poor children placed in such houses until they were bound 
out according to law. This is another example of the direct 
transplanting to the colony of an English custom, and the similar- 
ity between this law and the law of 1601, described above, is at 



56 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

once noticeable. In 1769 an act was passed by which children 
born out of wedlock were to be bound apprentices by the church- 
wardens, the boys until they v/ere twenty-one and the girls until 
they reached the age of eighteen. And the master or mistress was 
required to teach such children, or cause them to be taught, to 
read and write. 

By the Revolution the poor laws and the apprenticeship legisla- 
tion had been built up sufficiently to take care of all poor orphans, 
children of poor parents, and illegitimate children. Under the 
general law such children were to be bound by authorized local 
bodies to a master or mistress, to serve a term of years, during 
which time they were to be maintained, trained in an art, industry, 
or trade, and taught to read and write. When the term of service 
ended the apprentice usually found a career open to him for which 
he had been trained. However great the obvious weaknesses of 
such a system, its value for a large part of the colonial population 
cannot be questioned. 

By 1778 the duties and powers of dealing with the poor were 
beginning to be transferred from the churchwardens, vestries, or 
other church officers to state or county authorities. By this time 
the theory was gaining that caring for and educating and training 
poor children were functions of the State. Later the vestries and 
other parish bodies with powers of poor relief were dissolved in 
several counties of Virginia, and such parochial duties were trans- 
ferred to five freeholders who were to be elected overseers of the 
poor to serve for three years. These civil officers were to be a 
corporate body and succeed to the powers and duties of the church 
officers who had been charged with poor relief and the direction 
of the apprenticeship system. A few years later this legislation 
was extended to other counties, and by 1785 all powers and 
authority previously given the churchwardens for apprenticing 
poor and dependent children were taken over by the overseers of 
the poor, who were required to make monthly reports to the 
county courts. 



PUBLIC EDUCATION OF DEPENDENTS 57 

A provision of particular interest appeared in an act of 1 786 : 

Be it further enacted, that the overseers of the poor in each dis- 
trict, shall monthly make returns to the court of their county, of the 
orphans in their district, and of such children within the same, whose 
parents they shall judge incapable of supporting and bringing them up 
in honest courses. And the said court is hereby authorized to direct the 
said overseers, or either of them, to bind out such poor orphans and 
children apprentices to such person or persons as the court shall ap- 
prove of, until the age of twenty-one years, if a boy, or eighteen years, 
if a girl. The indentures of such apprentices shall contain proper 
covenants to oblige the person to whom they shall be bound, to teach 
them some art, trade, or business, to be particularized in the inden- 
tures, as also reading and writing, and, if a boy, common arithmetic, 
including the rule of three, and to pay to him or her, as the case may 
be, three pounds and ten shillings at the expiration of the time of 
service. 

Near the close of the eighteenth century the legislation was 
revised and summarized and the apprenticeship system slightly 
improved. The essential features were retained ; and throughout 
the nineteenth century these persisted in Virginia, as in practically 
all the States. By legislation of 1805 the indentures, as before, 
contained covenants to teach, ''except in the case of black and 
mulatto orphans." The law on the subject in 1849 rnade it in- 
cumbent on the master to teach or have his apprentice taught a 
trade or occupation, whether it was expressly provided in the 
indenture or not, ''and unless the apprentice be a free negro" 
the master was "bound to teach him reading, writing and common 
arithmetic, including the rule of three." This provision continued 
until the Civil War. Authority was also given for placing orphans 
and poor children in any incorporated association, asylum, or 
school instituted for the support and education of destitute chil- 
dren, and before the close of the century a definite form of 
agreement between the master and the court was specified by leg- 
islative enactment. With these exceptions legislation on the sub- 
ject of the poor and apprentices in Virginia has continued, in its 



58 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

essentials, practically unchanged from colonial practices, though 
the necessity for its enforcement has gradually decreased as other 
agencies have developed for caring for the dependent classes. 

The legislation and practices in Virginia were copied in great 
detail in other Southern colonies throughout the period. This 
was especially true of North Carolina, which was in close contact 
with Virginia. The system was in operation in North Carolina, 
however, many years before apprenticeship legislation was enacted 
in that colony. Records of the latter part of the seventeenth 
century show that orphans and poor children were then being 
bound out and apprenticed by the precinct courts,^ though legis- 
lation in that colony was not enacted on the subject until 1715. 
In that year a law was passed giving the precinct courts sole 
authority to bind out and apprentice such dependent children. 
The law required that ''all Orphans shall be Educated & provided 
for according to their Rank & degree out of the Income or Interest 
of their Estate & Stock if the same will be sufficient Otherwise 
such Orphans shall be bound Apprentice to some Handycraft 
Trade (the Master or Mistress of such Orphan not being of the 
Profession called Quakers) till they shall come of Age unless some 
kin to such Orphan will undertake to maintain & Educate him or 
them for the interest or income of his or her Estate without 
Diminution of the Principal whether the same be great or 
small. . . ." 

By an act of 1755 the churchwardens of every parish of North 
Carolina were required to furnish to the justices of the orphans' 
court, at its annual session, the names of children without guard- 
ians. Failure to perform this duty was punishable by a fine of 
"ten pounds proclamation money each." The court was to ap- 
point guardians for all such children, and these guardians were 
to make reports to the court of their wards and apprentices. 
When the court "shall know or be informed that any guardian 
or guardians by them respectfully appointed, do waste or convert 
the money or estate of any orphan to his or her own use, or do in 

1 Knight, Public School Education in North Carolina, chap. iii. 



PUBLIC EDUCATION OF DEPENDENTS 59 

any manner mismanage the same ... or neglects to educate or 
maintain any orphan according to his or her degree and circum- 
stance," the court was then empowered to estabUsh other rules 
and regulations for the better management of such estate and 
"for the better educating and maintaining such orphans." When 
the profits of any orphan's estate "shall be more than sufficient to 
maintain and educate him" the surplus was to be invested on good 
and sufficient security. But if the estate "shall be of so small 
value that no person will educate or maintain him or her for the 
profits thereof, such orphan shall by the direction of the court be 
bound apprentice, every male to some tradesman, merchant, 
mariner, or other person approved by the court, until he shall 
attain the age of twenty-one years, and every female to some 
suitable employment till her age of eighteen years, and the master 
or mistress of every such servant shall find and provide for him 
or her diet, clothes, lodging and accommodations fit and neces- 
sary, and shall teach, or cause him or her to be taught, to read 
and write, and at the expiration of his or her apprenticeship shall 
pay every such servant the like allowance as is by law appointed 
for servants by indenture or custom, and on refusal shall be com- 
pelled thereto in like manner. . . ." 

Further legislation on the subject of the maintenance and edu- 
cation of orphans was enacted in North Carolina in 1762 and 
was justified, according to the preamble, by the "experience that 
the court of each respective county, exercising the power of regu- 
lating the education of orphans, and the management of their 
estates, have proved of singular service to them." This law 
differed from previous legislation in one essential point. Formerly 
the churchwardens of every parish were required to report to the 
court the names of orphans and poor children without guardians 
or masters. By this act that duty was transferred to the grand 
jury of every county. Provision was further made for an orphans' 
court to be held annually by the justices of every inferior court of 
pleas and quarter sessions ; at this court accounts of guardians 
were exhibited and complaints heard. 



6o PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

The educational features of this law have a certain interest. 
The guardian of any orphan whose estate furnished the orphan 
an economic competency was to supervise his education and 
maintenance. When the estate was of such small value that "no 
person will educate and maintain him or her for the profits 
thereof," the orphan was to be bound apprentice by the court in 
the manner prescribed by earlier legislation. Masters or guardians 
refusing to observe the requirements of the law or of the 
indentures respecting education and training in a trade "shall be 
compelled thereto." And if on complaint made to the court it 
appeared that apprentices had been ill used and not taught or 
trained under the terms of the law and the indentures, they were 
immediately removed and bound to other suitable persons. 

With the exception of certain vestry acts, the act of 1762 re- 
mained until the national period practically the only legislation 
dealing with apprentices and the poor in North Carolina. Under 
this law, as already noted, the duty of reporting to the justices 
of the local court the names of orphans and poor children without 
guardians or masters was transferred from the churchwardens to 
the county grand jury. By the Vestry Act of 1777 similar author- 
ity was transferred from the vestrymen to the "overseers of the 
poor." Thus the full power of controlling the maintenance and 
education of the poor was taken from a parochial body and vested 
in the State. From such a transfer of authority developed the 
theory that caring for and "educating" the poor is primarily the 
function of the State, and in this conception is found the origin 
of the element of charity which was early attached to public edu- 
cational effort in the South. 

Revisions were gradually made in the law in North Carolina, 
but the principles of poor relief and of the apprenticeship system 
remained throughout the nineteenth century practically as they 
appeared in the early legislation. The main features of the law of 
1762 remained essentially unchanged until about 1846. Before 
the Civil War, however, it was not obligatory on the master to 
teach a colored apprentice to read and write, and authority was 



PUBLIC EDUCATION OF DEPENDENTS 6i 

given the court to place children in orphan asylums or in other 
incorporated institutions of a charitable character. By an act of 
1889, which is still in force, the master was required to provide 
as follows for his apprentice : 

Diet, clothes, lodging and accommodations fit and necessary; that 
the apprentice be taught to read and write and the rules of arithmetic 
to the double rule of three ; six dollars in cash, a new suit of clothes 
and a new Bible at the end of the apprenticeship; and such other 
education as may be agreed upon and inserted in the indenture by 
the clerk. 

Legislation on the subject was enacted in South Carolina in the 
last decade of the seventeenth century. By an act of 1695 com- 
missioners of the poor were appointed with power ''to take out 
of the public money of the province not exceeding ten pounds per 
year, and of that to give such competent sum or sums of money 
for and towards the necessary relief of the lame, impotent, old, 
blind, and such other persons being poor and not able to work, 
as to them shall seem convenient. And it shall be lawful for the 
said persons or any three of them, with the assistance of one or 
more justices of the peace, to employ any such person in such 
work as to them shall seem most fit, and also to bind any poor 
children to be apprentices, where they shall see convenient, till 
every male child shall come to the age of twenty-one years and 
every female child to the age of nineteen years or the time of her 
marriage. . . ." 

In 1698 an additional act was passed, but it contained little 
that was new except a provision for the care of pauper seamen 
who had been "brought in and left here upon the charge of the 
public." At the same time legislation was enacted to encourage 
the importation of white servants. The sum of thirteen pounds 
was promised for every white servant between the ages of sixteen 
and forty, Irish excepted, and the term of service of such servants 
was prescribed. 

Another act for the better relief of the poor of the colony was 
passed in 1712, when the earlier legislation was repealed. By this 



62 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

act the vestries of the several parishes were empowered to nom- 
inate overseers of the poor annually, who, together with the 
churchwardens, were to have oversight of the poor. Assessments 
were to be made on real and personal property, and the church- 
wardens and overseers of the poor, with the consent and approval 
of the vestry, were empowered to bind out and apprentice children 
as before. By a law of 1740 masters were required to teach 
their apprentices a "lawful business, art, trade, or mystery speci- 
fied in the indenture," and this requirement remained the general 
law on the subject. As late as 1882 the same provisions were in 
force, and they have been retained substantially unchanged until 
the present. Legislation on the subject in South Carolina was 
not very extensive, and it is also remarkable that it contained no 
requirements that masters provide for their apprentices formal 
educational facilities demanded by similar legislation in other 
States. This apparent defect of the law in that State was not 
improbably due to the extensive facilities for the education of 
the poor, through charity schools and other institutions of an 
eleemosynary character, with which the State was early provided. 
The law of Georgia was not altogether unlike that of Virginia 
and North Carolina. In the main it required the clerk of the 
court to bind out children as follows : 

Where it shall appear to the said court that the annual profits of 
the estate of any orphan is not sufficient for the education and main- 
tenance of such orphan, it shall be the duty of such court forthwith 
to bind out the said orphan for the whole or such part of the time of 
such orphan's minority as to them shall seem best ; and the person 
to whom such orphan shall be bound, shall undertake to clothe and 
maintain such apprentice to be taught to read and write the English 
language, and the usual rules of arithmetic. 

This law was in force a large part of the eighteenth century and 
fully half of the nineteenth. Later the following was enacted and 
has remained the law on the subject : 

It shall be the duty of the master to teach the apprentice the 
business of husbandry, house service, or some other useful trade or 



PUBLIC EDUCATION OF DEPENDENTS 63 

occupation, which shall be specified in the instrument of apprentice- 
ship; shall furnish him with protection, wholesome food, suitable 
clothing, and necessary medicine and medical attendance ; shall teach 
him habits of industry, honesty, and morality ; and shall cause him to 
be taught to read English ; and shall govern him with humanity, using 
only the same degree of force to compel his obedience as a father 
may use with his minor child. 

The first legislation enacted in what is now the State of 
Tennessee was practically the same as the law of 1762 of North 
Carolina, its parent State. This law required the master or 
mistress of every orphan apprenticed to find and provide for 
him or her diet, clothes, lodging, and accommodations fit and 
necessary and to teach or cause him or her to be taught "to read 
and write and cypher as far as the rule of three." A later enact- 
ment required the master or mistress, at the expiration of the ap- 
prenticeship, to pay the apprentice, in addition to the usual 
stipulations of the contract, the sum of twenty dollars and to 
furnish him with one good suit of clothes. 

The law in Louisiana required the master to instruct the ap- 
prentice in his art, trade, or profession and to teach him or cause 
him to be taught to read, write, and cipher. In addition to this 
requirement the following provisions appeared early and have 
remained the principal legislation on the subject of apprenticing 
poor children : 

In every case where any person shall be bound in any place, where 
there shall be a school established, either as an apprentice or servant, 
who shall be under the age of twenty-one years, there shall be a 
clause in the indentures binding the master or mistress to teach or 
cause to be taught the said apprentice or servant to read and write, 
as also to instruct him in the fundamental principles of arithmetic. 

As early as February, 1807, a law in what is now the State of 
Mississippi required the overseers of the poor to make returns to 
the county courts twice a year of all poor orphans in their 
districts and of such other children within the same "whose 
parents they shall judge incapable of supporting them, and 



64 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

bringing them up in honest ways." Such children were later 
to be bound apprentices ; and the master or mistress of every 
apprentice "shall engage by a covenant, to be entered in the 
indenture, to provide the apprentice with a sufficiency of good 
and wholesome provisions, necessary clothing, washing and 
lodging ; to teach the said apprentice the business or occupation 
which he pursues for a livelihood, and also, to read, write and 
cypher as far as the rule of three ; and at the expiration of said 
apprenticeship, to furnish the said apprentice with one complete 
new suit of clothing, and two shirts; if a female, one complete 
new suit of clothes, and two shifts." By a later enactment this 
was changed to read, ''to furnish the said apprentice with one 
complete new suit of clothes and two changes of linen." 

Later still the law required the person to whom the apprentice 
was bound to teach him or her "some art, trade, or business, to 
be particularized in the indenture," and reading, writing, and 
common arithmetic, "including the rule of three; and also, to 
furnish him or her, at the expiration of said apprenticeship, a 
genteel suit of clothes, not less than twenty dollars in cost, and 
ten dollars in money." A further revision of the law required 
the master to treat his apprentice humanely, to teach him or her 
the occupation "which such person may follow," and to send him 
or her to school until "he or she may learn to read, write, and 
perform any ordinary calculation incident to the life of a farmer ; 
and at the expiration of the apprenticeship, to furnish such ap- 
prentice with two suits of new clothing of a substantial kind." 
This, with a few slight changes, has remained the law on the 
subject in Mississippi. 

Under early legislation in Alabama the justices of the county 
courts were to appoint the overseers of the poor and to have con- 
trol of all phases of poor relief. The duties of the overseers were, 
among others, to make returns to the county courts of the poor 
orphans, children of criminals and of parents incapable of "bring- 
ing them up in honest ways." Such children were to be bound ap- 
prentices. With a few slight revisions this law remained in force 



PUBLIC EDUCATION OF DEPENDENTS 65 

throughout the nineteenth century and provided that " the person 
to whom such apprentice shall be bound, shall engage by a 
covenant, to be entered in the indenture, to provide the apprentice 
with a sufficiency of good and wholesome provisions, necessary 
clothing, washing, lodging ; to teach the said apprentice the 
business or occupation which he pursues for a livelihood ; and 
also to read, write, and cypher, as far as the rule of three; 
and at the expiration of said apprenticeship, to furnish the 
said apprentice with one complete new suit of clothing, and 
two shirts ; if a female, one complete new suit of clothes, and two 
shifts." 

The earliest law on the subject of apprenticing poor children 
in Arkansas, enacted just prior to 1840, remained essentially un- 
changed throughout the century. The educational feature, how- 
ever, did not apply between 1840 and the Civil War to free negroes 
and mulattoes, who were otherwise apprenticed in the same man- 
ner as other children. The law required the master or mistress 
to whom the children were bound to ''covenant to teach the ap- 
prentice some useful art, trade or business, to be particularized 
in the covenant ; and shall be further bound therein to teach 
said apprentice reading, writing and arithmetic, to the rule of 
three inclusive. ... In all such covenants, by parents binding 
their children, the indenture shall contain the covenant requiring 
the minors to be sent to school at least one fourth of their time, 
after they are seven years of age." 

The law in Florida required the county courts to bind out all 
minors who were poor orphans, vagrant children, the children of 
vagrants, and children abandoned by their parents. Boys were to 
be bound until the age of twenty-one and girls until they reached 
the age of eighteen years. At the close of the nineteenth century 
the law provided that ''the indenture of apprenticeship shall in 
all cases contain a covenant by the master or mistress to teach 
the apprentice some art, trade, business or occupation to be 
particularized therein, and also the elements of reading, writing 
and arithmetic, and to give said apprentice a new suit of clothes, 



66 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

shoes and blanket immediately upon the lawful expiration of the 
term of apprenticeship." Minor revisions were later made. 

In Texas the law applied to males until they were twenty-one 
and to females until they were eighteen years of age. The master 
was required to furnish the apprentice sufficient food and clothing, 
to treat him humanely, to furnish him medicine and medical at- 
tention when necessary, and to teach or cause him to be taught 
to read and write. The law also provided that the master should, 
"if practicable, send said minor to school at least three months in 
each year during the continuance of such apprenticeship, after said 
minor has arrived at the age of ten years, and while such minor 
is within the scholastic age." 

In its essential features the system of apprenticeship applied 
to poor children, orphans, illegitimate children, to those whose 
economic competency was insufficient to maintain and educate 
them "according to their rank and degree," and to girls as well 
as boys. The system sometimes applied to negro and mulatto 
children also, although the indentures did not always make it 
obligatory on the master to teach his negro or mulatto apprentices 
to read and write. There are on record, however, a few cases 
of free negro children who were bound out and apprenticed 
under indentures which gave them the benefit of the usual edu- 
cational features of the system. The practice of apprenticing 
children of the classes just mentioned was very general throughout 
the South, though more extensive in some States than in others ; 
and in the main the indentures differed but little, if any, from the 
apprenticeship system in operation in other parts of the coun- 
try. It is clear that the system was inherited from England and 
that it was a very highly important agency, especially during 
the colonial period, for the elementary education of dependent 
and unfortunate children. Such children were recognized as 
entitled to protection and to certain vocational and educational 
advantages. 

The principal agencies for putting the machinery of the ap- 
prenticeship plan into operation were the county courts, which 



PUBLIC EDUCATION OF DEPENDENTS 67 

met quarterly or oftener. The powers of these courts were con- 
ferred by legislation or were derived from custom or from the 
common law. Their interest in the poor and dependent children 
was usually more than nominal, perhaps, though the educational 
provisions of the indentures were not always enforced ; and it 
is not unlikely that in some cases the indentures or their 
interpretations were more favorable to masters than to ap- 
prentices. Guardians or masters were required to report annu- 
ally to the courts, and the justices were likewise required to make 
inquiry annually concerning the observance of the law. Often, 
however, the enforcement of the agreements or indentures de- 
pended on whether the apprentices, through friends or the grand 
jury, were able to get their cases before the court. Complaints 
of failure to comply with the law and the indentures were frequent, 
and penalties for neglect were often heavy. The records show 
that occasionally a master was summoned to answer the complaint 
of his apprentice and to " shew the court reasons why he does not 
teach him to read, as by indenture he is obliged." In such a 
case the master usually promised to " put his apprentice forthwith 
to school." The indentures did not always contain the educa- 
tional requirements of the system, despite the directions of the 
law; and often, no doubt, children were able to read and write 
before they were apprenticed. In such cases, of course, there was 
no legal necessity for including the educational requirements in 
the agreement. 

The extent of the practice in the South will probably never be 
accurately known. Evidence on this point is scarce and more or 
less inaccessible. Moreover, it is not improbable that the children 
who were apprenticed often took up their places in the homes of 
the guardians or masters on conditions of maintenance and care 
ordinarily granted other members of the household. In some 
cases the guardians or masters doubtless gave their apprentices 
essentially the same attention given their own children ; and 
when apprentices were ill used the law or custom required their 
removal and they were reapprenticed to other masters approved by 



68 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

the court. The success of the educational feature of apprentice- 
ship, therefore, naturally depended on the interest of the masters 
or guardians as well as on the desire of the apprentices to get 
"book learning." This was as true of the apprenticeship system 
as it is true of the educational features of public-welfare endeavor 
today ; and from the earlier practices valuable lessons may be 
gained for present-day effort in the important enterprise of caring 
for the delinquent and dependent children. 

It was noted in the beginning of this chapter that the ap- 
prenticeship practices were economic, humanitarian, and religious 
in purpose. The old apprenticeship laws generally recognized first 
the economic or industrial or vocational purpose, because there 
was need for skilled artisans or workers. This purpose came to be 
the dominating one ; though the humanitarian, religious, or phil- 
anthropic purpose may be seen in some legislation and practice of 
colonial times. In the main, however, the purpose was to give poor, 
unfortunate, and neglected children opportunity to learn useful 
trades and occupations so that they could become self-supporting 
and not public charges. The principal trades and occupations 
taught the apprentices included that of bricklayer, saddler, 
tailor, millwright, silversmith, barber, blacksmith, cooper, carpen- 
ter and joiner, cordwainer and shoemaker, twiner and weaver, 
in addition to the usual agricultural and domestic occupations 
so important in the life of the South. It is not unlikely, therefore, 
that both the courts and the masters were more nearly interested 
in the industrial than in the educational features of the apprentice- 
ship plan and through it sought to relieve the community of the 
financial burden incident to caring for its dependents. 

In the purposes, plans, and practices of the poor laws and the 
apprenticeship system of colonial times valuable lessons appear 
for the teacher, the administrator, and the social reformer of to- 
day. The old system in theory sought to give vocational and 
industrial training, to protect the poor and unfortunate children 
and to put educational opportunity within their reach, and to 



PUBLIC EDUCATION OF DEPENDENTS 6c, 

promote community well-being. Through the system a distinct 
form of compulsory education was provided, crude and defective 
but containing useful elements. But the general plan of ap- 
prenticeship, though admittedly of service during the colonial 
period and even later, was capable of wider usefulness than it 
served. At best it was haphazard and neglectful in operation 
and failed to develop a wholesome public attitude toward social 
problems of that period. Moreover, it not improbably served to 
delay the early development of an adequate public-school system 
and to inject into the school system finally set up the element 
of charity, which has until recent years proved a mischievous 
influence. 

Today there is a growing consciousness in the South that the 
State owes a peculiar duty to delinquent and neglected children. 
They have become objects of serious social concern. Some of 
them are cared for in orphanages or other institutions, but many 
remain neglected and, through no fault of their own, are denied 
the opportunity for wholesome growth and useful citizenship. 
Through juvenile courts, probation officers, children's home socie- 
ties, boards of charities, and public-welfare agencies of various 
kinds the South is recognizing the obligation to these classes, 
who have always been present in organized social groups. The 
problem is a significant one for education and educators and pre- 
sents a unique challenge to all good citizens. Its solution is to 
be found in intelligent recognition of the condition as it exists, 
in sensible publicity by which the public can keep safely informed, 
in a rational coordination of all social agencies both public and 
private, in a redirection of educative forces of all kinds, and in 
a new emphasis on personal and community ideals and the es- 
sentials of effective citizenship. 

Thus new duties are laid on the school and the teacher, 
whose interest and activities, if properly conceived and performed, 
will extend as never before far away from the schoolhouse to every 
man, woman, and child in the community. For the teachers are 



70 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

now more than at any time in the past the keepers and the 
guardians of the public welfare: through them it must be pro- 
tected and promoted and extended to all members of the com- 
munity, the State, and the nation ; and largely through their 
work universal education and equality of educational opportunity 
will eventually be made realities in the life of all the people. 



QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION AND FURTHER STUDY 

1. Account for the development of the poor laws and the apprentice- 
ship system in England. 

2. Why was the apprenticeship system set up in the Southern 
colonies ? 

3. Examine the early legislation and records on the subject in your 
State for (a) purpose, (b) plan of operation, and (c) the extent of the 
system. In what way did the apprenticeship practices form an ele- 
mentary system of education for the poor and dependent children 
of colonial times ? Point out its advantages ; its disadvantages. 

4. In what way or ways were the apprenticeship laws and practices 
humanitarian, philanthropic, religious, vocational, industrial, or eco- 
nomic in purpose? Why was the economic purpose probably most 
powerful in the system? 

6. In what way or ways did the apprenticeship plan retard the 
early development of a public-school system ? Did it in any way help 
to promote an interest in public educational effort in your State? In 
what respect did it form a compulsory systern of education for poor 
and unfortunate children? 

6. Examine the court records of your county for peculiar examples 
of the apprenticeship system. Why is the system less extensive today 
than a hundred years ago? How are poor and dependent children 
cared for in your State today? 

7. What effort is your State making to promote social well-being 
through the education and training of neglected, delinquent, and de- 
pendent children? What are the organized public agencies for this 
work in your State? Are the dominating purposes of such agencies 
economic, humanitarian, philanthropic, charitable, religious, vocational, 
recreational, or corrective? 



PUBLIC EDUCATION OF DEPENDENTS 71 

8. What lessons have the purposes, plans, and results of the old 
apprenticeship system for the teacher and the educational administrator 
or social worker today ? Point out the relation between it and public 
educational enterprises of the present. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Bruce, Economic History of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century, 2 vols. 
New York, 1907. Bruce, Institutional History of Virginia in the Seven- 
teenth Century, 2 vols. New York, 19 10. Clews, Educational Legislation 
and Administration of the Colonial Governments. New York, 1899. Cyclo- 
pedia of Education (edited by Paul Monroe), Vol. V. New York, 1913. 
Jernegan, "Compulsory Education in the American Colonies," in the 
School Review, January, 1919 ; "The Educational Development of the 
Southern Colonies," in the School Review, May, 1919 ; "Compulsory Edu- 
cation in the Southern Colonies," in the School Review, June, 19 19, and 
February, 1920. Knight, Public School Education in North CaroUna. 
Boston, 1916. Knight, "The Evolution of Public Education in Virginia," 
in the Sewanee Review, January, 1916. Leach, English Schools at the 
Reformation. London, 1896. Nicholls, A History of the English Poor 
Law, 3 vols. New York and London, 1898-1899. Poore, The Federal and 
State Constitutions, 2 vols. Washington, 1877. Session Acts, Codes, and 
Revisals of the Southern States from colonial times to the present. Tyler, 
"Education in Colonial Virginia," in William and Mary College Quarterly 
Historical Magazine, Vol. V. 



CHAPTER IV 
THE ACADEMY MOVEMENT 

Outline of the chapter, (i) In general, three different types of 
secondary schools have appeared in the educational development of 
the South, — the Latin grammar school, the academy, and the public 
high school. 

2. The academy appeared in England after 1660 to supply the need 
of education for the nonconformists, but in America it grew out of 
frontier conditions. In the South the academy was of two kinds, 
one local and short-hved, the other more pretentious and of longer 
life. Some academies owed their origin to sectarian pride, while 
others grew out of the so-called community or "old field schools." 
Evidence of this appears in certain descriptions of early academies, 
especially that given by John Davis about 1800. 

3. The influence of denominational interest was very marked, how- 
ever, in the development of early academies. This appears from the 
work of the Methodists, the Quakers, the Baptists, and especially of 
the Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, whose educational interests were wide 
and powerful throughout the South. 

4. Numerous academies were established and were doing highly 
creditable work in the South by 1800, and the work continued until 
about 1850. 

5. The manual-labor schools and the military schools were two 
interesting variants of the academy. Both of these types of schools 
were popular for a time. 

6. The principal characteristic of the academies made them peculiar 
educational institutions in purpose, in organization and control, in cur- 
riculum, and often in results. The academies influenced the programs 
of higher educational institutions, the training of teachers, the higher 
education of women, and were the nuclei from which many Southern 
colleges grew. 

7. The academy began to decline in the South after the Civil War, 
when public education received a new meaning ; since that time its 
place has been largely taken by the public high school. 

72 



THE ACADEMY MOVEMENT 73 

Three very different types of so-called secondary schools have 
appeared in the educational growth of this country. The first 
was the Latin grammar school of the colonial period, in which 
the classics and elementary mathematics were taught. This kind 
of school reached its greatest development in New England. It 
was not an important institution in the South, although oc- 
casionally such a school was found in that region. The academy 
was the second type of secondary school. It began to appear 
about 1750 and rapidly developed in the South until the third 
type, the public high school, began to gain such an important 
place after the Civil War. The academy was a very highly 
respected means of education in the South, where it extended in 
greater numbers than in other sections of the country. Its most 
phenomenal period of growth covered the first half of the nine- 
teenth century. After 1870 it began to yield its place to the 
public high school, which received marked impetus by the Peabody 
Fund, which was established a few years before that date. 

A certain historical interest attaches to the manner by which 
the word "academy" came to apply to the type of school which 
went under that name in the United States and gave a form of 
secondary instruction. The word was often used to describe 
schools of one sort or another by numerous notable educational 
essays which were produced by the spirit of the Renaissance. 
In Milton's "Tractate on Education" (1644) the word "academy" 
was used to describe a school where "a complete and generous 
culture" was furnished. The term was also used by the non- 
conformists in England to describe their boarding schools ; 
Daniel Defoe used the word in "Essay on Projects," first published 
about the close of the seventeenth century, in a sense similar to 
that used by Milton and by numerous others who wrote on the 
subject of education. Defoe used the word "academy," however, 
to designate a society of learned men to promote the arts, sciences, 
or literature. And Benjamin Franklin, who claimed to have been 
greatly influenced by the "Essay on Projects," formulated, near 
the middle of the eighteenth century, a plan for the public 



74 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

education of the youth of Pennsylvania which showed the influence 
of the celebrated English author. The pamphlet, which contained 
Franklin's plan for an academy, had an extensive circulation 
and was widely read. Moreover, before the close of the eighteenth 
century numerous educational institutions appeared in the United 
States which in organization and management and in the course 
and method of instruction obviously followed Franklin's plan. 

The academy appeared in England after the Restoration (1660) 
to supply the need of education for the nonconformists, who not 
unlikely used the term as employed by Milton to designate the 
schools which they established. The Act of Uniformity, as re- 
newed in 1662, was one of the series of intolerant laws enacted 
under the second Parliament of Charles II. Under this act clergy- 
men who refused to accept in its entirety the Book of Common 
Prayer were excluded from holding their benefices, About two 
thousand clergymen, fully one fifth of all the rectors and vicars 
of the English Church, were driven from their parishes. Those 
refusing to conform to that Church formed one class, known 
as dissenters or nonconformists. Moreover, the Act of Uniformity 
required the license of the Bishop as a qualification for teaching 
and also excluded dissenters from the privileges of the universi- 
ties; and the Five Mile Act of 1665 completed the code of 
persecution against the nonconformists. Under its provisions 
clergymen excluded by the Act of Uniformity were required to 
take an oath that they would not under any pretext take up arms 
against the king and would at no time '' endeavor any alteration of 
government in Church or State." If they refused to take such an 
oath they were not permitted to go within five miles of any 
borough or any place where they had previously ministered. Most 
of the dissenters belonged to the urban and trading classes, and 
the effect of this act was to deprive them of any religious teach- 
ing whatever. 

Many of the dissenters thus deprived of their former means 
of livelihood took to teaching through necessity. Others, how- 
ever, began to teach by choice, while many of them were doubtless 



THE ACADEMY MOVEMENT 75 

moved by a high sense of duty to provide educational facilities 
by which their future leaders could be trained. But on account of 
the laws enacted against them, all those who early engaged in 
teaching were forced to teach by stealth or to become migratory 
in order to escape persecution by their relentless enemies. In 
England, therefore, the academy was a result of nonconformity 
and sprang up as a protest against religious tyranny and the 
sectarian intolerance of the schools. Moreover, its rise shows 
the appearance of a demand for schools which were not ex- 
clusive in character but were open to all. It is of interest to 
note, therefore, that the English academy did not draw its 
students exclusively from the dissenters and that it frequently 
supplied an education for the children of the poor as well as for 
those who could pay the fees. 

The academy in America has been called the product of the 
frontier period of national development and the laissez jaire theory 
of government. But in this country the earlier schools of the 
academy type, especially those which developed from the work 
and influence of the dissenters, were very largely denominational 
and under ecclesiastical control. Not infrequently the motives 
back of their establishment found root in denominational interest 
and sectarian pride. Later, however, with a phenomenal increase 
in denominations, there developed a marked impatience with secta- 
rian strife. A new but persistent educational problem resulted — 
the problem of promoting schools and the means of education 
in communities which were remarkable for their religious diversity. 
This impatience and discontent gave expression to a protest 
against using the school as a means of teaching blind obedience 
to religious dogma and formalism. Soon the general principle 
was evolved that sectarianism and denominationalism should not 
be a part of school instruction — that the task of the school-teacher 
was not to give instruction in theology and religious dogma. On 
the other hand, however, the equally significant belief developed 
that the broad and fundamental aspects of religion should be 
stressed fully and earnestly. Meanwhile men appeared who, 



76 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

though of different rehgious beliefs, were united on the subject 
of the necessity for education and learning. Therefore, although 
the academy in America grew into a school which was pervaded 
by a deep and intense religious spirit, it became, in general, 
nonsectarian. Moreover, the academy was not exclusive but 
democratic in character and reflected the new American spirit, 
which demanded opportunity to settle "American problems in an 
American way." 

Academies in the Southern States were divided into two prin- 
cipal classes. One class was local and modest in its claims, 
transient and short-lived, though capable, in the main, of supply- 
ing creditable educational facilities in the communities which they 
served. Schools of this class were also frequently called old 
field schools, hedge schools, or forest schools. And the origin of 
many academies in the South appeared not only in the old field 
school or the community school but also in the tutorial system. 
With an increase in population educational facilities increased, 
and those schools which were more substantially established 
sought incorporation by legislative enactment, with some of the 
most influential men of the community as trustees. The other 
class had a wider patronage, was more pretentious, and possessed 
creditable equipment and frequently more or less substantial 
endowments, which naturally enabled the institution to extend its 
usefulness and prolong its career. All academies, however, were 
usually privately controlled and managed by an incorporated 
board of trustees. Incorporation, which gave the trustees a legal 
existence and full authority to carry on the work of the school, 
was all that most of the academies asked of the State, and this 
was usually all the official recognition or assistance given, though 
occasionally an academy was given the privilege of raising funds 
by lottery. Fees were invariably charged, though in a few 
instances poor children were taught free of tuition charges; in 
some cases free tuition was allowed poor children in return for 
certain privileges or aid extended by the State. The purpose of 
the academy was usually the same, whether large or small. With 



THE ACADEMY MOVEMENT 77 

the growth of a strong democratic spirit in the revolutionary 
period the idea of a liberal education appeared, and the ideal of 
education for its own sake and for its value in promoting individ- 
ual worth developed. This idea of a liberal education for heighten- 
ing individual development was the dominant aim of the academy- 
movement. And while the academy primarily served those in- 
dividuals who were able to pay for its advantages, it also served 
in a larger way the entire community. 

All the earlier academies, however, did not owe their origin to 
sectarian pride and denominational interest. As often, perhaps, 
schools which were dignified by the name "academy" grew from 
tutorial instruction in the family of some prominent citizen in 
the community or from the so-called community or old field 
schools. Evidence for this explanation of the origin of many 
earlier academies appeared in the experiences of that class of 
teachers who found temporary employment as tutors in the South. 
One of the most striking of these testimonies was made by John 
Davis, an Englishman, in ''Travels of Four Years and a Half in 
the United States."^ Davis was a man of more than ordinary 
education and training and of pleasing address, and during his 
stay in this country, from 1798 to 1802, numbered among his 
friends many men of high political and social station. He was a 
private tutor in New York and South Carolina and Virginia, and 
his descriptions of men and manners have an interesting educa- 
tional significance. The sketch below tells of his work as a tutor 
in Virginia. With letters of introduction from Thomas Jefferson 
and other prominent men, Davis went to the plantation of a 
Mr. Ball, probably in Prince William County, and engaged to 
teach his and his neighbors' children. 

The following day every farmer came from the neighborhood to the 
house, who had any children to send to my academy, for such they 
did me the honor to term the log hut in which I was to teach. Each 
man brought his son, or his daughter, and rejoiced that the. day was 

1 London, 1803. The copy which the author examined is in the Library 
of Congress. 



78 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

arriving when their httle ones could Hght their tapers at the torch of 
knowledge ! I was confounded at the encomiums they heaped upon a 
man whom they had never seen before, and was at a loss what 
construction to put upon their speech. No price was too great for 
the services I was to render their children ; and they all expressed an 
eagerness to exchange perishable coin for lasting knowledge. If I 
would continue with them seven years they would erect for me a 
brick seminary on a hill not far off ; but for the present I was to 
occupy a log house, which, however homely, would soon vie with the 
sublime college of William and Mary, and consign to oblivion the 
renowned academy in the vicinity of Fauquier Court House. I thought 
Englishmen sanguine ; but these Virginians were infatuated. 

I now opened what some call an academy, but others an old field 
school ; and, however it may be thought that content was never felt 
within the walls of a seminary, I, for my part, experienced an exemp- 
tion from care, and was not such a fool as to measure the happiness of 
my condition by what others thought of it. 

It is worth while to describe the academy I occupied on Mr, Ball's 
plantation. It had one room and a half. It stood on blocks about 
two feet and a half above the ground, where there was free access to 
the hogs, the dogs, and the poultry. It had no ceiling, nor was the 
roof lathed or plastered, but covered with shingles. Hence, when it 
rained, I moved my bed (for I slept in the academy), to the most 
comfortable corner. It had one window, but no glass nor shutter. 
In the night, to remedy this, the mulatto wench who waited on me, 
contrived ingeniously to place a square board against the window with 
one hand, and fix the rail of a broken down fence against it with the 
other. In the morning when I returned from breakfasting in the 
"great big house," (my scholars being collected), I gave the rail a 
forcible kick with my foot, and down tumbled the board with an 
awful roar. , . . 

It was pleasurable to behold my pupils enter the school over which 
I presided ; for they were not composed only of truant boys, but 
some of the fairest damsels in the country. Two sisters generally rode 
on one horse to the school door, and I was not so great a pedagogue 
as to refuse them my assistance to dismount from their steed. A run- 
ning footman of the negro tribe, who followed with their food in a 
basket, took care of the beast ; and after being saluted by the young 
ladies by the courtesies of the morning, I proceeded to instruct them, 
with great exhortations to diligence of study. 



THE ACADEMY MOVEMENT 79 

Common books were only designed for common minds. The un- 
connected lessons of Scott, the tasteless selections of Bingham, the 
florid harangues of Noah Webster, and the somniferous compilations 
of Alexander were either thrown aside, or suffered to gather dust on 
the shelf ; while the charming essays of Goldsmith and his not less 
delectable novel, together with the impressive works of Defoe, and 
the mild productions of Addison, conspired to enchant the fancy, and 
kindle a love for reading. The thoughts of these writers became en- 
grafted on the minds, and the combinations of their dictions on the 
language of the pupils. 

Of the boys I cannot speak in very encomiastic terms ; but they 
were perhaps like all other school boys, that is, more disposed to play 
truant than to enlighten their minds. The most important knowledge 
to an American, after that of himself, is the geography of his country. 
I, therefore, put into the hands of my boys a proper book, and ini- 
tiated them by an attentive reading of the discovery of the Genoese ;- 
I was even so minute as to impress on their minds the man who first 
described land on board the ship of Columbus. That man was 
Roderic Triana, and on my exercising the memory of a boy by asking 
him the name, he very gravely made answer, "Roderic Random." 

Among my male students was a New Jersey gentleman of thirty, 
whose object was to be initiated in the language of Cicero and Virgil. 
He had before studied the Latin Grammar at an academy (I use his 
own words), in his native State; but the academy school being burnt 
down, his grammar, alas ! was lost in the conflagration, and he had 
neglected the pursuit of literature since the destruction of his book. 
When I asked him if he did not think it was some Goth who had 
set fire to his academ.y school, he made answer, "So, it is like enough." 
Mr. Dye did not study Latin to refine his taste, direct his judgment, 
or enlarge his imagination ; but merely that he might be enabled to 
teach it when he opened school, was his serious design. He had been 
bred a carpenter, but he panted for the honors of literature.^ 

I frequently protracted the studies of the children till one, or half 
past one o'clock ; a practice that did not fail to call forth the exclama- 
tions both of the white and black people. "Upon my word," Mr. Ball 
would say, " the gentleman is diligent ; " and Aunt Patty, the negro 

1 Davis relates that "the recreation of Mr. Dye, after the labor of study, 
was to get under the shade of an oak, and make tables, or benches, or 
stools for the academy. So true is the assertion of Horace, that the cask 
will always retain the flavor of liquor with which it is first impregnated." 



8o PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

cook, would remark, "He not like old Hodgkinson and old Harris, who 
let the boys out before twelve. He deserves good wages. . . ."^ 

I had been three months invested in the first executive office of 
pedagogue, when a cunning old fox of a New Jersey planter (a 
Mr. Lee), discovered that his eldest boy wrote a better hand than I. 
Fame is swift-footed ; the discovery spread far and wide, and whither- 
soever I went, I was an object for the hand of scorn to point his 
slow, unmoving finger at, as a schoolmaster that could not write. 
Virginia gave me for the persecutions I underwent, a world of sighs ; 
her swelling heavens rose and fell with indignation at old Lee and his 
abettors. But the boys caught spirit from the discovery. I could 
perceive a mutiny breaking out among them ; and had I not in time 
broke down a few branches from an apple tree before my door, it is 
probable they would have displayed their gratitude for my instruction 
by throwing me out of the school window. But by arguing with one 
over the shoulders, and another over the back, I maintained with 
dignity the first executive office of pedagogue. 

Three months had now elapsed, and I was commanded officially to 
resign my sovereign authority to Mr. Dye, who was in every respect 
better qualified to discharge its sacred functions. He understood tare 
and trett, wrote a copperplate hand, and, balancing himself on one leg, 
could flourish angels and corkscrews. I, therefore, gave up the "acad- 
emy school" to Mr. Dye, to the joy of the boys, but to the sorrow 
of Virginia. 

Judge Longstreet, of Georgia, in "Georgia Scenes," described 
an academy as he saw it in that State in 1790, which was not 
altogether unlike the one Davis taught in Virginia. 

It was a simple log pen, about twenty feet square, with a doorway 
cut out of the logs, to which was fitted a rude door made of clap- 
boards, and swung on wooden hinges. The roof was covered with clap- 
boards also, retained in their places by heavy logs placed on them. 
The chimney was built of logs, diminishing in size from the ground 
to the top, and overspread inside and out with red clay mortar. A 
large three-inch plank (if it deserves that name) for it was wrought 
from the half of a tree's trunk entirely with the axe), attached to logs 

1 Davis admitted that he taught a greater number of hours than his con- 
tract required because of his interest in the lessons of Virginia, one of his 
"fair disciples." 



THE ACADEMY MOVEMENT 8i 

by means of wooden pins, served the whole school for a writing-desk. 
At a convenient distance below it, and on a line with it, stretched a 
smooth log, which answered for the writer's seat. 

Commenting on this description of what he called an old field 
school, the Reverend Barnas Sears, first general agent of the 
Peabody Fund, said that "intelligent persons, belonging to differ- 
ent States, have assured me that they were educated in such 
academies, as they were sometimes termed." Sherwood, in "A 
Gazetteer of Georgia," said of the academies of that State : 

Many of these, however, are misnamed ; for an academy supposes 
instruction in the higher branches of education ; but some are no 
better than "old field schools." We hope the Legislature will see to it, 
in the future, that no charter of incorporation shall be granted to any 
body of trustees, unless it be a sine qiia non, that in such academy 
there shall be taught, at least a part of the year, the learned languages 
and higher branches of the mathematics. Deception enough has been 
practiced in manufacturing academies, as they are called, to get money 
from the treasury. When established, they have no better claims to 
pecuniary aid than any other school : they draw money merely be- 
cause they have trustees, and are incorporated ! 

Although the management of practically all academies in the 
later period of the movement was free from sectarianism in 
religion and from partisan bias in politics, as has already been 
pointed out, yet not a few of the earlier ones had their origin in 
denominational pride. This was due to the break-up of religious 
conservatism near the middle of the eighteenth century, when 
dissenters greatly increased and nonconformity began to assume 
powerful proportions. The Germans, who began to come in as 
early as 1745 and continued until near the close of the century, 
established schools and churches wherever they settled ; the ap- 
pearance of the Pennsylvania Quakers likewise added intellectual 
and moral strength ; numerous European Baptists settled in the 
South, especially in North and South Carolina, and began an 
educational influence which was far-reaching; the educational 
influence of the Methodists of the "Asburyan period" rapidly 



82 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

extended ; and the Scotch-Irish Presbyterians greatly influenced 
educational growth in that region. 

The schools of the Methodists were few before the close of 
the eighteenth century, yet the early educational work of this 
denomination serves to illustrate the statement that some of the 
earlier academies had their origin in sectarian interest. The 
Methodists were not numerous in this country before the Revolu- 
tion, and as late as 1785 the entire American membership num- 
bered only about eighteen thousand. But they showed interest 
in education and before the close of the century organized a few 
schools in the South. Ebenezer School, in Brunswick County, 
Virginia, founded in 1785, is said to have been the first Methodist 
school established in this country ; and Cokesbury College, estab- 
lished at Abingdon, Maryland, in the same year, was the first 
Methodist College in the world. Bethel School (founded in 
Kentucky in 1790), Cokesbury School (established in Rowan, 
now Davie County, North Carolina, about 1793), and the 
Cokesbury or Bethel School (founded in Newberry County, South 
Carolina, in 1796) were some of the institutions begun by the 
Methodists. The trustees agreed that the South Carolina School 
should be free and that " only the English tongue and the sciences 
should be taught." 

The most significant educational work of all these dissenters, 
however, was that of the Scotch and Scotch-Irish Presbyterians. 
They had great faith in the value of education, and their high 
esteem and reverence for an educated ministry led them to 
emphasize secondary and collegiate training. They spread over 
practically all the colonies, but were especially strong in the South, 
where they became the leaders of intellectual and religious devel- 
opment during the latter half of the eighteenth century. In every 
community where they came a schoolhouse and church sprang up 
simultaneously with the settlement; ''almost invariably as soon 
as a neighborhood was settled preparations were made for preach- 
ing the gospel by a regular stated pastor, and wherever a pastor 
was located, in that congregation there was a classical school." 



THE ACADEMY MOVEMENT 83 

Moreover, Princeton College proved an educational impulse to the 
South. Scores of its graduates, many of them native Southerners, 
returned and became intellectual and religious leaders. Many of 
them promoted the "log college" movement which developed 
among the Presbyterians, supplying "log colleges," which often 
served as academies, colleges, and theological seminaries and 
which in many respects belonged to the regular academy type. 

One of the most illustrious of the early Presbyterian teachers 
in the South was Dr. David Caldwell, whose celebrated "log col- 
lege" was located near Greensboro, North Carolina, where it had 
a long and useful career. Caldwell was born in Pennsylvania in 
1725 and was graduated from Princeton with the degree of bach- 
elor of arts in 1761. Four years later he came to North Carolina 
as a Presbyterian minister, and in 1767 founded the school which 
in a short time became the most important institution of learning 
in the State and one of the most influential in the South, This 
"log college" was known for its thoroughness rather than for its 
extensive curriculum or its large enrollment. The average annual 
enrollment was between fifty and sixty, but it is said that more 
men entered the learned professions from this institution than 
from any other school in the South. Five of Dr. Caldwell's stu- 
dents became governors of States, several of them became mem- 
bers of Congress, and many others were distinguished as jurists, 
physicians, preachers, and teachers. But for a temporary inter- 
ruption by the British in 1781 the institution had an unbroken 
career of success until 1822, when old age compelled its brilliant 
leader to retire from active service.^ 

Another famous Presbyterian teacher, who in his work and 
influence bears a striking similarity to Caldwell, was Moses 
Waddel. He was born in Rowan County, North Carolina, in 1770, 
and was graduated from Hampden-Sidney College, in Virginia, 
in 1 79 1. He taught a few years before doing his college work, 
which he completed in a short time, and then, like Caldwell, 
began his life work as preacher and teacher. His first work after 

1 Knight, Public School Education in North Carolina, chap. ill. 



84 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

leaving college was in Georgia ; then he went to South Carolina, 
and in 1804 opened a school at Willington, on "the high ridge 
between the Savannah and Little Rivers." The Huguenot settlers 
and the Scotch-Irish of that region furnished him many students, 
but others gathered from ''all parts of this and adjoining States, 
and the wild woods of the Savannah resounded with the echoes 
of Homer and Virgil, Cicero and Horace." Numerous students 
were here prepared for Princeton, Yale, and Harvard, and not a 
few of the better ones for the junior classes in these institutions. 
Among his pupils were many who became jurists, congressmen, 
governors, educators, and clergymen of wide reputation. Waddel 
was a tireless and devoted student and teacher of the classics. 
It is said that the dull boys of his classes would prepare more 
than one hundred lines of Virgil for a single recitation, and 
some of the brightest boys as many as a thousand lines. The 
school was large at times, often having an enrollment of two 
hundred. Waddel continued at its head until 18 19, when he was 
elected president of Franklin College, now the University of 
Georgia. The school at Willington seems to have continued, 
however, under the direction of his sons for several years after 
the famous teacher went to Georgia. 

There were numerous other schools which grew out of the 
Presbyterian influences in the South in the eighteenth century 
and which became educational leaders in the communities where 
they were established. Prince Edward Academy, in Virginia, 
established in 1775, grew into Hampden-Sidney College; Liberty 
Hall Academy, established in the same State in 1776, developed 
into Washington and Lee University ; Clio's Nursery and Science 
Hall was opened about the beginning of the Revolution, in Iredell 
County, North Carolina, by Dr. James Hall, who was graduated 
from Princeton in 1774; Zion Parnassus was established near 
Salisbury, North Carolina, in 1785, by the Reverend Samuel C. 
McCorkle, who was graduated from Princeton in 1772. This 
school was well known for its normal department, which was the 
first attempt at teacher-training in North Carolina and one of 



THE ACADEMY MOVEMENT 8$ 

the first in this country, and for its assistance with tuition and 
books to worthy students. The school maintained a high order 
of scholarship and had an extensive influence. Six of the seven 
members of the first graduating class of the University of North 
Carolina received their college preparation in this academy. 

Tate's Academy was founded in Wilmington, North Carolina, in 
1760, by the Reverend James Tate, and was continued by him 
for nearly two decades ; Crowfield Academy, opened near Char- 
lotte, North Carolina, in 1760, was the nucleus from which 
Davidson College, in that State, developed. Queen's Museum, 
or Liberty Hall Academy, was another Presbyterian school in 
North Carolina which became known as an important institution 
for higher education. It was the last institution to seek incorpora- 
tion from the king and the first to receive a charter from the new 
State. The school had its beginning in the work of the Reverend 
Joseph Alexander, who was graduated from Princeton in 1760 
and who, with a Mr. Benedict, established a small classical school 
in a prosperous and intelligent community near Charlotte seven 
years later. In 1770 it was chartered by the Assembly as Queen's 
Museum, but the charter was repealed by the king and council. 
A second charter was secured, but only to meet the same fate ; 
fear that the school would become a great and permanent ad- 
vantage to the dissenters and a "fountain of republicanism" led 
to the repeal of the charters. In spite of royal disfavor, however, 
the institution flourished without a charter ; the house was used 
for literary and debating clubs and accommodated the meeting 
which formulated the reputed Mecklenburg Declaration of Inde- 
pendence. In 1775 the name was changed to Liberty Hall Acad- 
emy, and two years later it received a charter from the State. 

Sunbury Academy, chartered by the Legislature of Georgia, in 
1788, occupied a high and influential place in the educational 
life of that State for nearly forty years. The success of this 
school is closely associated with the name of the Reverend William 
McWhir, who had charge of the institution for nearly thirty years. 
He was a native of Ireland and a licensed Presbyterian minister. 



^ 



86 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

He came to America about 1783, for ten years had charge of an 
academy at Alexandria, Virginia, of which George Washington was 
a trustee, and in 1793 became principal of Sunbury Academy. 
The enrollment in this school averaged about seventy, but the 
pupils came from many counties in the southern part of the State. 
Dr. McWhir's great success as a teacher was attributed to his 
devout scholarship and to his qualities as a disciplinarian and 
instructor which left a profound impress on the educational 
progress of Georgia. V^ 

Davidson Academy, located in what is now Nashville, Ten- 
nessee, was chartered by the Legislature of North Carolina, the 
parent State, in 1785. The school was rechartered as Cumber- 
land College in 1806 and twenty years later as the University 
of Nashville, which had a long career of usefulness. But the early 
history of the academy is linked with the name of Thomas B. 
Craighead, a North Carolinian by birth and Scotch-Irish by 
descent. He was graduated from Princeton in 1775, was ordained 
a Presbyterian minister five years later, and early in 1785 took 
up his residence near Nashville. Colonel William Pope and Gen- 
eral James Robertson represented Davidson County in the Legis- 
lature of North Carolina and secured the legislation incorporating 
Davidson Academy, These two men and other prominent cit- 
izens in the community were the trustees, and the school soon 
attained a high position in public esteem. The following year 
Craighead was elected principal, a position which he held suc- 
cessfully for two decades. His influence as teacher and preacher 
suggests the work of Caldwell in North Carolina and of Waddel 
in South Carolina. 

One of the most interesting and, indeed, one of the most remark- 
able of these Presbyterian teachers was John Chavis, a full- 
blooded free-born negro of North Carolina. He was born in 
Granville County in that State about 1763. He early attracted the 
attention of the white people and was sent to Princeton "to see 
if a negro would take a collegiate education." As a private pupil 
under Dr. John Witherspoon, a famous teacher and president 



THE ACADEMY MOVEMENT 87 

of Princeton, Chavis's evidence of ability to learn convinced his 
friends that the experiment would be successful. After leaving 
college Chavis went to Virginia and engaged in religious work, 
but returned to his native State in 1805 at the request of Reverend 
Henry Patillo and engaged in religious and educational work 
under the auspices of the Presbyterian Church. He opened a clas- 
sical school soon after his return and taught for a number of 
years in the counties of Chatham, Granville, and Wake in North 
Carolina. 

Both as a preacher and teacher he was highly regarded by 
the best people in these communities. His English was said to 
be remarkable for its purity and its freedom from "negroisms," 
and his manner was impressive. He had a rare knowledge of 
Greek and Latin and of the Scriptures and was regarded as a 
powerful teacher and preacher. He continued his formal religious 
work until 1831, when the Legislature forbade negroes to preach. 
His work as a teacher, however, was perhaps the most remark- 
able feature of his life. His school was attended by the best white 
people of the community, among whom were several who later 
became distinguished. Willie P. Mangum, later United States 
Senator from North Carolina, and Charles Manly, who later be- 
came governor of the State, as well as other prominent people, 
were reported among his students. James H. Horner, for many 
years a well-known secondary educational leader in North Caro- 
lina, said of Chavis : " My father not only went to school to him 
but boarded in the family. . . . The school was one of the best to 
be found in the State." And Professor John Spencer Bassett says : 

From a source of the greatest respectability I have learned that this 
negro was received as an equal socially and asked to table by the 
most respectable people in the neighborhood. Such was the position 
of the best specimen of the negro race in North Carolina in the days 
before race prejudices were aroused. 

The work of the Presbyterians and other dissenters gave notice- 
able impetus to the academy movement after the Revolution, and 



88 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

by 1800 numerous academies could be found in all the Southern 
States. In Virginia they appeared early and multiplied rapidly ; 
by the close of the century twenty-five or more were flourishing in 
that State. Among the best known were Prince Edward Academy, 
Liberty Hall Academy, Fredericksburg Academy, Shepherdstown 
Academy, Norfolk Academy, Winchester Academy, Petersburg 
Academy, Alexandria Academy, and several others. By the mid- 
dle of the nineteenth century more than two hundred had been 
incorporated, and there were scores of less pretentious ones that 
had not been chartered but were very active. 

The practice of founding and chartering academies was equally 
as popular in the Carolinas. In North Carolina thirty were 
chartered by the Legislature before 1800, and from that time until 
the movement declined from two to twelve were incorporated at 
nearly every meeting of that body. Many academies appeared in 
South Carolina also between 1800 and 1850. 

The constitution of Georgia in 1777 provided for schools to be 
supported in each county of the State at public expense, and the 
Legislature of 1783 provided a land endowment for a system of 
county academies, which it continued to control and support until 
1840. This is the clearest example in the South of state support 
for academies. Under the same act a free school was established 
in Washington, Wilkes County, and two academies were founded 
— at Waynesboro, in Burke County, and at Augusta, in Rich- 
mond County. The latter academy became known as the 
Richmond County Academy and was perhaps the most famous and 
influential in the entire State. Its work continued with marked 
success throughout the ante-bellum period. In 1845 it had an 
equipment valued at $30,000 and an annual income from real- 
estate holdings amounting to $1600, besides $12,000 worth of 
bank stock and considerable land. During the Civil War the 
building was converted into a Confederate hospital, and at the 
close of hostilities it was occupied for a time by Federal troops. 
The school was reopened, however, in 1868 and began again a 
career of great educational influence. 



THE ACADEMY MOVEMENT 89 

This plan of land endowment for academies and other stimuli 
given by the State promoted the growth of this type of institution. 
In 1785 the county academies were placed under the admin- 
istrative system of the newly established state university, though 
its authority over those schools proved to be more nominal than 
real. The constitution of 1798 provided that the Legislature 
should "give such further donations and privileges" to the schools 
in operation at that time "as may be necessary to secure the ob- 
jects of their institution." This greatly stimulated the growth 
of the academy, and by 1820 thirty-one had been chartered. The 
following year the sum of $250,000 was set aside as an academic 
fund, the income of which was to be divided among certain 
authorized academies in the counties or to be appropriated to aid 
elementary education. The effect of this fund was immediate. 
More than three times as many academies were chartered during 
the next decade as were established during the previous forty 
years. In 1831 there were more than one hundred such schools 
in the State, and ten years later the number had greatly in- 
creased. In 1837, however, the academic fund had been trans- 
ferred to the so-called common-school fund, and the number of 
academies chartered began noticeably to decline. 
'^ The early history of education in Tennessee is a complicated 
story throughout. It is, as Phelan has so well said in his history 
of that State, closely connected with the history of public lands, 
which is the history of confusion. Tennessee was settled from 
North Carolina near the middle of the eighteenth century, and its 
history for many years was closely related to that of the parent 
State. Samuel Doak, a Scotch-Irish Presbyterian, was one of 
the earliest teachers in what is now Tennessee and opened a school 
at Salem about 1780. Three years later the Legislature of North 
Carolina chartered Martin Academy in what is now Washington 
County, Tennessee, and granted it the same privileges and powers 
granted Liberty Hall Academy when that institution was in- 
corporated in 1777. Martin Academy grew into Washington Col- 
lege in 1795 and has been called the first educational institution 



90 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

established in the Mississippi Valley, In 1785 Davidson Academy 
in Nashville was incorporated. This institution was the beginning 
of Cumberland College, established in 1806, and became the 
University of Nashville in 1826. 

One of the most interesting phases of the State's educational 
history developed from a compact to which Tennessee, North 
Carolina, and the Federal Government were parties, the terms of 
which agreement were expressed in the act of Congress of April 
18, 1806. In 1790 North Carolina had ceded to the Federal 
Government all the lands within the territory now known as 
Tennessee. Four years later Tennessee was organized as a terri- 
tory, and in 1796 it was admitted to the Union as the sixteenth 
State ; but the Federal Government retained the lands ceded by 
the parent State until 1806. By the act of April 18 of that year, 
however, Congress conveyed to Tennessee, under specified condi- 
tions, so much of those lands as lay north and east of a certain line, 
afterward known as the Congressional reservation line. The 
reservation included all of West Tennessee and a large area in 
Middle Tennessee ; and Tennessee conceded to the Federal Gov- 
ernment the right to dispose of land in this jurisdiction, while 
the lands outside the reservation were ceded to the State on 
certain conditions. One of these conditions was that the State 
should appropriate one hundred thousand acres of land in one 
tract south of the French Broad River and the Holston River and 
west of the Big Pigeon River for the use of academies, one to be 
established by the Legislature in each county. The academy lands 
were not to be sold for less than two dollars an acre unless they 
were already occupied. In such a case the occupants were allowed 
to perfect their rights at one dollar an acre. This proviso greatly 
reduced the actual value of the cession. It was afterward found 
that a large part of the lands was occupied, and respect for 
the settlers' claims caused what appeared to be a munificent edu- 
cational gift to yield only half the revenue expected. 

This and other reservations made at the same time were the 
foundation of a college fund, an academy fund, and a common- 



THE ACADEMY MOVEMENT 91 

school fund, which were apparently intended to support a complete 
State system for the education of all the people. But the lands 
which were thus to form the basis of such a system were, by later 
legislation, disposed of at very low sums and the proceeds in- 
vested by commissioners appointed for the purpose. However, a 
few academies were early established and soon rapidly increased. 
By an act of September 13, 1806, provision was made for estab- 
lishing academies in the several counties of the State and for 
appointing trustees for them, and in 181 7 an act was passed 
which apparently contemplated making the academy part of a 
complete system. The law said : 

Whereas, institutions of learning, both academies and colleges should 
ever be under the fostering care of the Legislature, and in their con- 
nection form a complete system of education, be it enacted that all 
the academies of this State shall be considered schools preparatory to 
the introduction of students into the colleges. . . . 

It appears that under the act of September 13, 1806, and 
supplementary acts, thirty-eight academies were chartered, one 
for each county organized in the State at that time. Practically 
all these were for boys, and they seem to have been "the only 
public institutions of the time." It should be noted also that 
through such schools "public education made its entry into the 
State." It appears, however, that such academies as were organ- 
ized between 1806 and 1827 were largely private enterprises and 
depended almost entirely on private patronage for their»support ; 
in fact, they had no reliable source of income until 1838. More- 
over, difficulties arose which should have been foreseen from the 
outset. The State had been admitted to the Union ten years 
before the cession from the Federal Government and before it had 
been reached by the admirable Federal survey. Moreover, a large 
part of the land had been taken up by immigrants who had con- 
tended against the many hardships incident to frontier life. They 
had won homes in the face of discouraging odds, and neither a 
high sense of justice nor reverential regard for the regularity of 



92 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

the law overcame sentiment or sympathy for such courageous 
pioneers. From the first, therefore, efforts to comply with the pro- 
visions of the land grants were met with substantial resistance. 
Occupation rights were confirmed upon conditions of long pay- 
ments, with the time of such payments frequently extended. The 
prices of the lands were often lowered and interest was now and 
then remitted, with the result that the lands finally passed beyond 
the control of the State and of the schools. Confusing conditions 
arose early and confronted educational effort in Tennessee for 
many years. 

In his message to the Legislature in 1821 Governor McMinn 
had said: 

We all know that two hundred thousand acres of land south of the 
French Broad and Holston Rivers at the price of $1 per acre was 
appropriated to the establishment of and support of colleges and 
academies ; but in what manner collections on the sale of those lands 
have been made and to what amount, how much of the principal or 
interest has been voluntary or otherwise paid, or how much still re- 
mains due or to become due is scarcely known to any individual within 
the State, and perhaps it would not be practicable for the Legislature 
to inform themselves satisfactorily on the various points connected 
with the subjects by reports drawn from any department of the 
government. 

The executive had advised the Legislature to take immediate 
steps to acquire full and accurate information on the whole sub- 
ject. Ncfthing was done, however, and the matter of public lands 
for school support continued confused and unsatisfactory until 
1838. In that year an act was passed creating the Bank of 
Tennessee and providing an annual payment of $18,000 for 
academy support in exchange for the proceeds of the academy 
lands, which became part of the bank's capital. In 1840 an act 
was passed declaring that certain academies should be ''known 
as the county academies of the State " ; and the Bank of Tennessee 
was directed to pay the sum of $18,000 annually for the support 
of such institutions, the sum to be distributed equally to each of 



THE ACADEMY MOVEMENT 



93 



the seventy-four counties of the State. The faith of the State was 
pledged to the payment of this appropriation, and from that time 
until 1 86 1 the payments were regularly made. The table below 
exhibits the operation of this fund from 1840 to 1861 : 



Year 



Appropriation 


Disbursement 


Balance 


$18,000 


$7,920.00 


$28,080.00 


18,000 


16,320.00 


29,760.00 


18,000 


28,560.00 


19,200.00 


18,000 


18,240.00 


18,960.00 


18,000 


20,360.00 


16,600.00 


18,000 


19,000.00 


15,600.00 


18,000 


11,931.36 


21,668.64 


18,000 


21,562.08 


18,106.56 


1 8,000 


23,442.24 


12,664.32 


18,000 


19,213.84 


11,450.48 


18,000 


18,202.74 


11,247.74 


18,000 


17-374-99 


11,872.75 


18,000 


17.501-92 


12,370.83 


18,000 


17,509.84 


12,860.99 


18,000 


16,129.20 


14.731-79 


18,000 


18,263.20 


14,468.59 


18,000 


14,875.40 


17,593-09 


18,000 


19,260.40 


16,332.79 


18,000 


21,348.98 


12,983.81 


18,000 


18,275.97 


12,707.84 


18,000 


1 5,863.30 


14,844.54 


18,000 


16,516.25 


16,328.29 



1840 , 

1841 . 
1842 , 

1843 
1844, 

1845. 

1846, 

1847. 
1848. 
1849. 
1850. 

1851 . 

1852 . 

1853- 
1854. 

1855- 

1856. 

1857- 
1858. 
1859. 

i860. 
I86I . 



This form of support served for many years as an educational 
stimulus and promoted the development of academies in Ten- 
nessee. The number of such institutions naturally increased 
rapidly. Weeks says : 

For many years they gave direction to the educational tone of the 
State, but they were not numerous enough to meet all educational 
wants, and others of like grade and character were established by pri- 
vate individuals, by social orders and above all by denominational 
interests. They continued to dominate and direct the educational in- 
terests of the State until 1S73. 



94 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

A large educational plan was mapped out in Louisiana by an act 
of 1805. An administrative body similar to that of New York 
State, and known as the " University of New Orleans," was insti- 
tuted, the regents of which were certain civil officers and others, 
to be elected by the Legislature for life tenure. The same act em- 
powered the regents to establish a college in New Orleans and one 
or more academies in each county of the territory '' for the instruc- 
tion of French and English languages, reading, writing, grammar, 
arithmetic, and geography." It further provided for a number of 
academies " for the instruction of the youth of the female sex in 
the English and French languages, and in such branches of polite 
literature and such liberal arts and accomplishments as may be 
suitable to the age and sex of the pupils." For the more extensive 
communication of useful knowledge provision was made for estab- 
lishing one public library in each county. The funds necessary 
to support this educational undertaking were to be raised by 
lotteries. The lottery provision was later revoked, however, and 
direct appropriations were substituted. Significant beginnings 
were thus made for carrying out the provisions of the act of 1805 
with reference to the college and academies. But in 182 1 the 
regents of the University of Orleans were abolished, and five years 
later the college was discontinued 

The county or parish academies contemplated in the original 
act were set in operation in at least a dozen counties by 181 1, and 
the Legislature appropriated to each of them the sum of $2000 for 
buildings and equipment, and an annual maintenance grant of 
$500. In 181 9 the annual appropriation was raised to $600 and 
two years later to $800. The act of 182 1 also provided that eight 
''beneficiary students" should be educated at each academy re- 
ceiving the legislative appropriation and should be furnished with 
books and writing materials. In 1827 it was enacted that the sum 
of S2.62 monthly for each student be appropriated for the support 
of one or more schools in each county or parish, and in 1833 the 
Legislature enacted that funds appropriated for school support 
should be distributed on the basis of actual school attendance. 



THE ACADEMY MOVEMENT 95 

Schools with an enrollment of not more than ten children received 
$4 a month for each ; those which had an enrollment of ten to 
twenty were granted $3 a month for each ; schools with an enroll- 
ment of more than twenty would receive $2,50 a month for each 
child, "provided the whole sum paid to any parish should not 
exceed the amount allowed it by law for that purpose," which at 
that time ranged from S800 to $1350 for each county. 

On this basis the academy system in Louisiana continued until 
the passage of an act in 1847, which adopted a free public-school 
system. The academy movement in that State was influential in 
committing the public to the free-school principle and in the aboli- 
tion of tuition charges. Moreover, about 1833 the custom of sub- 
sidizing "academies proper" for a term of years had begun. 
These schools were regular academies with self-perpetuating 
boards of trustees, who had the usual powers and privileges of 
educational corporations. The bounty from the State was given 
to these academies on the condition that free instruction be given 
the poor children. 

Montpelier Academy was the first institution of this kind to 
receive aid from the State. Among the others which received aid 
before 1842 were Academy of Claiborne, Ouachita Female Acad- 
emy, West Baton Rouge Academy, Avoyelles Academy, Catahoula 
Academy, Covington Female Seminary, Spring Creek Academy, 
Caddo Academy, Franklinton Academy, Pine Grove Academy, 
Providence Academy, Johnson Female Seminary, Greensburg Fe- 
male Academy, Springfield Institute, Minden Female Seminary, 
Poydras Academy, Plaquemines Academy, Union Male and Fe- 
male Academy, and Vermilionville Academy. In 1842 a bill was 
enacted to retrench expenses, and many educational appropriations 
were discontinued ; three years later agitation began for a public- 
school system for the entire State. Up to that date, however, the 
estimated amount which the State appropriated to encourage 
county or parish academies was more than $973,000, and the 
actual amount spent in subsidizing academies from 1833 to 1842 
was more than $127,000. Although the aid of the State was 



96 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

greatly decreased in 1842, private academies continued to grow, 
and by the middle of the nineteenth century they were found in 
great numbers in Louisiana. 

During a great part of the French and Spanish regime, in what 
is now the State of Mississippi, few schools of any kind were set 
up in the territory. Before the close of the eighteenth century, 
however, private tutors were employed by some of the wealthy 
planters, and some boys were sent to the East and North and even 
to Europe for their education. Around Natchez the people 
seemed especially interested in education and in 1799 petitioned 
Congress for educational aid. About the same time or a little 
later a few private schools were opened, and others would prob- 
ably have been established if there had been a sufficient number 
of qualified teachers to take charge of them. One of the earliest 
schools in Mississippi was for girls and was established in Natchez 
in 1 80 1 by the Reverend David Ker, who had had a successful 
academy at Fayetteville, North Carolina, ten years before. In 
1802 Jefferson College was chartered by the territorial Legislature. 
This was the first educational institution to receive incorporation 
in Mississippi, but lack of funds delayed its opening until about 
18 1 1. Throughout the nineteenth century, however, it had an in- 
fluential career. Washington Academy was chartered in Washing- 
ton County about the same time and was exempted from taxation 
and given lottery privileges to raise funds for its support. In 1819 
the Legislature chartered the Elizabeth Female Academy (the 
first girls' school to be incorporated in Mississippi and "the first 
fruits of Protestant denominational work in the extreme South " ) , 
which became an influential Methodist school. Gradually other 
private academies were established prior to 1850. 

Many of the earliest settlers of what is now Alabama were from 
the older sections of the South and naturally brought with them 
the educational ideals and customs with which they were familiar. 
Private academies constituted one form of educational practice 
with which they were acquainted, and these institutions began 
to appear as early as 181 1. The first educational legislation for 



THE ACADEMY MOVEMENT 97 

the region now known as Alabama was by the territorial Legis- 
lature of Mississippi, in 181 1, when Washington Academy was 
established, but this institution seems to have had a very slow 
growth. But other private schools began to appear rapidly, and 
numerous ones were incorporated from 181 2 through the ante- 
bellum period, not a few of which were granted lottery privileges 
for raising funds. Almost every Legislature incorporated one or 
more schools of this type, and at the outbreak of the Civil War 
a large number of academies were in operation. 

Although Arkansas did not enter the Union until 1836, its 
earliest inhabitants were not lacking in facilities for education. 
The sources of the State's population had been Tennessee, Ala- 
bama, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, and Georgia. This 
population was more or less homogeneous and naturally held 
the same ideals which were found in the States from which 
it had come. School-teachers came in with the first American 
settlements and were numerous before the territory became a 
State. Some of the best known of the early teachers were Caleb 
Lindsey, who taught in Lawrence County as early as 1 8 1 6 ; John 
Calloway, who had a school in Clark County ; Moses Easburn, 
who taught school for sixty years, beginning in 182 1 ; and Jesse 
Brown, who founded the Little Rock Academy ("a primary and 
academical school") in 1825. The schools taught by these and 
other teachers went under the general name of academies, 
but not a few of them doubtless gave more primary than 
secondary instruction. Later the more pretentious ones sought 
legislative incorporation, and from 1836 to i860 a large number 
of such institutions were chartered. 

Batesville Academy, in Independence County, the first school to 
receive a charter in Arkansas, was incorporated in 1836. The 
second educational institution to be chartered was the Fayette- 
ville Female Academy, in October of the same year. From that 
time until the Civil War several private schools and academies 
were incorporated at nearly every session of the Legislature. 
The acts incorporating the schools were usually of the same type 



98 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

and ordinarily granted the same privileges. By 1850 there were 
ninety academies reported in the State, and during the next 
decade this number was doubled. 

Florida and Texas were the last of the Southern States to be 
admitted to the Union. They were admitted in 1845 ^"d had the 
experiences of their older sisters to guide them in formulating 
educational policies. Something of educational importance had 
already been attempted in each, however, before this time. The 
Florida Education Society, formed at Tallahassee in 1831, was 
of considerable influence in collecting and diffusing educational 
information and in working to secure the establishment of such 
a system of schools as would be suited to the conditions and needs 
of the Territory. By 1840 eighteen or twenty private academies 
had been formed, each with trustees numbering from five to nine. 
The constitution of the Republic of Texas in 1836 declared : ''It 
shall be the duty of Congress, as soon as circumstances will per- 
mit, to provide by law a general system of education"; and an 
act of that Republic three years later granted three leagues of land 
to each county for the purpose of supporting an academy. More- 
over, the constitution adopted when Texas came into the Union 
was very adequate in its provisions for educational support. Both 
of these States showed interest in schools as a public concern, 
though Florida's first common-school system was not inaugurated 
until 1849, ^"d it was not until 1854 that a regular system of 
free schools was provided for Texas. However, private academies 
were active, though not very numerous, in both States during the 
ante-bellum period. 

The manual-labor schools and the military schools were two 
interesting variants of the academy in the South. The former 
received a great impetus through the industrial work of the 
Pestalozzian-Fellenberg movement, which attracted attention in 
the first quarter of the nineteenth century. Fellenberg was a 
companion and colaborer of Pestalozzi and established an insti- 
tution at Hofwyl in Switzerland in 1806, in which he combined 
literary instruction and manual labor. The students pursued 



THE ACADEMY MOVEMENT 99 

their literary work in the mornings and farmed in the afternoons. 
The institution continued for forty years and attracted wide edu- 
cational attention. Henry Barnard believed it had a wider influ- 
ence than any other institution in Europe or America in the 
nineteenth century. Through its influence physical exercises be- 
gan to claim attention in the United States; through discussion 
the public mind came to be more or less educated to an apprecia- 
tion of their value, and there was an agitation for giving a place 
in the schools to physical training and gymnastics. This agitation 
proved somewhat disappointing, though it resulted in a widespread 
realization of a need for attention to the physical conditions of 
students. Confidence in the power of formal physical exercises 
later weakened, and the so-called gymnastic movement finally col- 
lapsed. Gradually, however, attention was called to such sub- 
jects as physiology and hygiene as aids in the preservation of 
health, and campaigns began for introducing them into the schools. 
With the failure of the formal gymnastics movement, Fellen- 
berg's idea of combining manual labor and intellectual pursuits 
was eagerly seized upon as the solution of the problem. Advo- 
cates of agricultural and mechanical work in educational insti- 
tutions appeared early, but the movement did not gain much force 
until near the close of the first quarter of the nineteenth century. 
Interest in the experiment gradually increased, however, and for 
two decades or more manual-labor schools sprang up in numerous 
places. The earliest school of this character in the United States 
seems to have been established at Lethe, in South Carolina, under 
the will of Dr. John De La Howe, which was made in 1786. 
The school had a useful career from 1805 until the Civil War, 
when the loss of endowment forced its suspension. The manual- 
labor feature was introduced widely in theological institutions, 
colleges, and academies in many States, and by 1830 most of 
the States had one or more institutions in which manual labor 
appeared as a necessary feature. The preservation and invigora- 
tion of health were no doubt powerful motives in the introduction 
of manual labor in many literary institutions, but the supposed 



lOO PUBLIC EDUCATION IX THE SOUTH 

hygienic value probably had no more weight in promoting its 
adoption than the promising pecuniary advantage of the scheme 
or its value as an agency for recruiting sectarian ranks. It will 
be remembered that denominational controversies were intense 
during this period. Wherever practicable, farms and shops were 
provided for such schools adapted on the manual-labor plan, and 
the time was divided between manual labor and study. 

The theoretical side of the experiment culminated in the early 
thirties, by which time the movement had also attained consid- 
erable practical proportions. Reverend Elias Cornelius, editor of 
the American Quarterly Register and secretary of the American 
Education Society, lectured and wrote on the subject, and the 
Fellenberg system continued to be advocated by numerous educa- 
tional leaders. In June, 183 1, an enthusiastic meeting of manual- 
labor advocates was held in New York, with the result that the 
'Society for Promoting ^lanual Labor in Literary Institutions" 
was formed, and Theodore D. Weld was appointed as its general 
agent. Weld had been connected with the Oneida Manual Labor 
Institute at Whitesboro, New York, which was one of the insti- 
tutions made conspicuous by its manual-labor feature from 1S27 
to 1S34. He was enthusiastic in advocating the new system 
and made a tour of many States, including several in the South, 
in the interest of the plan. In 1S32 he made a report which con- 
tained the most elaborate presentation of the movement ever 
published, setting forth the claims of manual labor as a necessary 
part of a sound educational system. 

The report advanced many ingenious and apparently plausible 
arguments in favor of manual labor. It claimed that the system 
of education in practice at that time jeopardized the health of the 
students, tended to effeminate the mind, was perilous to morals, 
failed to stimulate effort, destroyed habits of industry, and was 
so expensive that its practical results were noticeably anti- 
democratic. Moreover, the manual-labor feature furnished the 
kind of exercise best suited to students. ^lilitar}- exercises, the 
report argued, were proper in strictly military schools, but were 



THE ACADEMY MOVEMENT lOi 

not adapted to any other and would not be "until fighting becomes 
' the appropriate vocation of man and human butchery the ordinary 
business of life." Ordinary gymnastic exercises were not suitable 
because they lacked pecuniary value and were not productive 
of material resources. Manual labor would correct all these and 
numerous other educational defects. It would furnish exercises 
"natural to man" and adapted to intellectual interests, produce 
happy moral effects, and equip students with valuable practical 
acquisitions. In addition to these advantages it was further 
claimed that the new plan would promote habits of industry, inde- 
pendence of character and originality, and would render "perma- 
nent all the manlier features of character." It would also afford 
opportunity and facilities for "acquiring a knowledge of human 
nature." It promised to reduce the expense of education, to in- 
crease wealth, and to make all forms of honest labor democratic 
and honorable by destroying "these absurd distinctions in society" 
which make one's occupation the standard of one's work. Finally, 
manual labor would preserve republican institutions. 

The "Society for Promoting Manual Labor in Literary Institu- 
tions" had a short life of activity. Weld served as its general 
agent only one year, and his successor was never appointed. 
The popularity of the movement which this organization sought 
to promote was likewise short-lived, though in the thirties and 
forties several institutions introduced the manual-labor feature. 

The experiment was especially popular in several of the South- 
ern States. The Virginia Baptist Seminary, from which Rich- 
mond College grew, made manual labor compulsory for all its 
students for a short time. Emory and Henry, founded by the 
Methodists in Virginia, in 1838, included manual labor as a part 
of its required program. There the students worked on the farm 
for two hours each afternoon and received from two to five cents 
an hour for their labor. Later the compulsory feature was aban- 
doned, though the institution retained manual labor for a few 
years as a voluntary feature. Efforts were made also, but without 
success, to introduce the new plan in Hampden-Sidney College. 



102 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

In Donaldson Academy, at Fayetteville, North Carolina, a 
school of this kind was begun in 1834 under the auspices of the 
Presbyterians. The enterprise was put in charge of the Reverend 
Simeon Colton, who, for a number of years, had been connected 
with similar work at Amherst, Massachusetts. At one time the 
Fayetteville school had one hundred and fifty students, but the 
manual-labor feature was discarded at the end of the second 
year, Colton becoming convinced that ''close habits of study 
and manual labor were incompatible." About 1838 the experi- 
ment was tried in what is now Davidson College (near Charlotte, 
North Carolina), an institution under the control of the Presby- 
terians, but the plan collapsed there after three years' trial. 
A large number of the students were sons of farmers and had 
learned to work in the fields before taking up their collegiate 
studies ; they thought it quite a loss of time, therefore, to plow and 
to cut wood while at college. The experiment was also made at 
Wake Forest, a Baptist institution in North Carolina, with the 
same or similar result. 

South Carolina saw the feature tested in several instances. In 
the various reports of the free-school commissioners of that State 
in 1839, when the school system was critically examined, some 
believed that manual labor was the solution of the educational 
problem. But the report of James H. Thornwell and the Reverend 
Stephen Elliott, who were instructed to investigate the system and 
report to the Legislature, discarded manual-labor schools as 
''egregious failures" in almost every instance where they had 
been tried. The plan seems to have been tested, however, at 
Cokesbury or Bethel by the Methodists, at Erskine by the Associ- 
ated Reformed Presbyterians, at Furman by the Baptists, and 
at Pendleton, South Carolina, by "working citizens," but in every 
case with the usual unsatisfactory result. 

A manual-labor school was begun at Eatonton, Georgia, by the 
Baptists in 1832, and while it met with difficulties, as was antici- 
pated, nevertheless the school for a short time " flourished beyond 
the expectations of the most sanguine." Another school was begun 



THE ACADEMY MOVEMENT 103 

by the Baptists in 1833 near Greensboro, in Greene County. It 
owned a thousand acres of land, "large and convenient buildings," 
and "large stocks of horses, cattle, and hogs." The students 
"work from two to three hours a day, growing cotton, corn, and 
potatoes, and are happy. . . . The Lord has prospered the school. 
In the first year a large number of the students professed religion." 
In 1832 a school was begun "in Mcintosh," the Presbyterians 
began one near Athens in 1833, and the Methodists began one 
near Covington in 1835, which seems to have been planned on a 
large scale. 

In Arkansas the trustees of the township schools, established 
by an act of February, 1843, were authorized to establish "a 
laboring school wherein the students shall be required to labor a 
portion of each day." The experiment was tried in that state in 
Benton Academy (in Saline County), which was chartered in 
1 842-1 843, and in Far West Seminary (in Washington County), 
which was chartered in 1 844-1 845. Efforts were made about 
1832 to organize a manual-labor school in the neighborhood of 
Tallahassee, Florida, but the undertaking was not successful. 

Practically all the institutions which tested the new plan soon 
abandoned it, however, as unsatisfactory and impracticable, and 
the movement finally collapsed. Practical difficulties rather than 
the inherent weaknesses of the principles underlying the plan 
cooled enthusiasm for it. It should be noted also that the intro- 
duction of athletics in educational institutions proved a wholesome 
substitute for the physical features of the manual-labor scheme. 
However, the manual-labor idea was not lost. Instead, it ap- 
peared in the Morrill Act of 1862, which greatly influenced 
industrial education in the United States, and in another form 
in the manual-training movement of recent years, which is no 
doubt achieving some of the same purposes which the earlier 
movement sought to attain. 

The military type of education — the other variant of the 
academy movement — was highly favored in the South, partly be- 
cause of slavery and the patrol system, partly because of the 



104 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

influence of West Point, which was established in 1802, and also 
because of a natural fondness for things military. Captain Alden 
Partridge, for some time superintendent of the United States 
Military Academy, founded the American Literary, Scientific, and 
Military Academy at Norwich, Vermont, in 1819. Twenty years 
later he founded the Virginia Literary, Scientific, and Military 
Institute at Portsmouth, Virginia. In that same year the Virginia 
Military Institute was established at Lexington and followed 
closely the general plan of the school at West Point. Three 
years later the South Carolina Military Academy was founded. 
Like the school in Virginia, the South Carolina institution had 
a very successful career during the ante-bellum period, and at 
the beginning of the Civil War had numerous graduates. A great 
many of them became officers in the Confederate Army, filling 
every grade from lieutenant to brigadier general, and were dis- 
tinguished for their zeal, intelligence, and courage. Although the 
schools in Virginia and South Carolina were the most influential 
of all such institutions set up in the South before the Civil War, 
military education was very popular in that region, and academies 
with the military feature multiplied before i860. 

Certain interesting characteristics of the academies may be 
noted in conclusion. First of all they were private institutions, 
usually owing their origin to private enterprise and private 
benefaction. They were under the management and control of self- 
perpetuating boards of trustees, who were among the most public- 
spirited and progressive citizens of the community. Such schools 
had no outside supervision and often were laws unto themselves. 
The only thing they sought at the hands of the Legislature which 
gave them charters was corporate powers — authority to own and 
control property, to receive legacies and endowments, to employ 
and dismiss teachers, and sometimes authority was given to grant 
degrees or to confer distinctions and diplomas. Lottery privileges 
were occasionally allowed ; in most cases the academies were 
exempted from taxation, and not infrequently the teachers and 
pupils were relieved from military and road duties. This type of 



THE ACADEMY MOVEMENT 105 

school went under a variety of names, such as academy, institute, 
seminary, collegiate institute, and sometimes the word "college" 
was employed. Some of them were for girls exclusively, some 
were coeducational, but most of the academies were intended 
primarily for boys and young men. 

Tuition charges were universal, though frequently the acts 
of incorporation required indigent children to be taught free of 
charge in return for lottery privileges or an occasional subsidy or 
grant from the State, It should be remembered, however, that 
although the academy usually served those who were able to pay 
for its educational facilities, it nevertheless served the community 
in a larger sense. Not a few of the earlier academies were de- 
nominational in their origin, and all were more or less religious 
in character ; in the main, however, they were noticeably free 
from sectarianism and from party politics. Some were so-called 
''fitting schools" and prepared for college, while others sought 
to furnish both a college preparation and a practical education. 
The academies belonged to no conscious educational system or 
organization ; they were independent, more or less isolated, and 
frequently transient. But considering the difficulties in their 
way their success cannot be questioned. They appeared at a time ' 
when a large educational domain was unoccupied and would have 
remained unfilled but for them. They became educational centers 
wherever they developed, lent a broadening influence to those who 
could not go to college, and provided adequate preparation for 
those looking to collegiate training. They performed much of 
what is now the work of the public high school and something of 
what is now done in college, and often with highly satisfactory 
results. 

The curriculum, or course of study, found in the academy often 
showed a wide range of subjects. The academy was intended to 
afford instruction in more subject matter than was offered in the 
old Latin grammar school of colonial times ; moreover, it was 
designed also to meet the constantly increasing demand of those 
who did not seek a college training or admission into the learned 



io6 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

professions, and to provide for those who wanted a higher form 
of instruction than could be furnished by the so-called common 
or district school, which slowly appeared in most of the Southern 
States during the second quarter of the nineteenth century. The 
academy, therefore, took over from the Latin grammar school 
such traditional subjects as Latin, Greek, and mathematics, which 
had been favorite college preparatory subjects. Up to 1800 these 
were the principal subjects required for admission to the leading 
colleges of the country, and during the first sixty years of the 
nineteenth century only five new subjects appeared in the require- 
ments for admission to college: geography, about 1807; English 
grammar, about 1819; algebra, about 1820; geometry, about 
1844; and ancient history, about 1847. Moreover, many of the 
earlier academies in the South were conducted by graduates of 
Northern and Eastern colleges and later by graduates of the Uni- 
versity of North Carolina, of Virginia, and of Georgia. It was 
natural, therefore, that the academy should seek to give prepara- 
tion for college. 

Since the academy not only furnished preparation for college 
but sought to give a practical training also, in time other subjects 
appeared in its curriculum. Among these were English literature, 
certain branches of natural sciences, history, modern foreign 
languages, natural and moral philosophy, ethics, psychology, ge- 
ography, such forms of applied mathematics as surveying and 
navigation, English composition, oral reading and declamation, 
and commercial subjects, especially bookkeeping. One academy 
gave instruction in reading, writing, English grammar, geography, 
mathematics, Latin, and Greek in 1800; in another similar school 
in 1803 the boys were taught reading, writing, ciphering, English 
grammar, Nepos, Caesar, Sallust, and Virgil, and the girls in the 
same institution were taught spelling, reading, writing, ciphering, 
Dresden work, tambour work and embroidery; in 1805 the 
principal of an academy advertised to teach, with the aid of one 
assistant, "belles-lettres, rhetoric, ethics, metaphysics, Hebrew, 
French, ItaKan, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, navigation. 



THE ACADEMY MOVEMENT 107 

mensuration, altimetry, longimetry, Latin, and Greek, in addition 
to reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, and EngHsh grammar." 
In 181 1 in another academy reading, writing, and spelHng were 
required subjects for the girls, and Latin, French, music, painting, 
and needlework were elective; and for the boys in the same 
school there was a Latin course which included grammar, Corderii, 
Caesar, Ovid, Virgil, Odes of Horace, and Cicero ; a Greek course 
which contained grammar and the Greek Testament ; a course 
in mathematics which required arithmetic, Euclid, and surveying ; 
and English grammar, parsing, and geography. A teacher in 
North Carolina advertised in 1818 that the "following sciences" 
would be taught in her ''female seminary": "Orthography, read- 
ing, writing, arithmetic, English grammar, needle-work, drawing, 
painting, embroidery, geography and the use of maps, also scan- 
ning poetry."^ 

The newer subjects were open to considerable experimentation, 
but certain ones became popular for good reasons. There was 
much practice, for example, in oral reading and declamation of 
masterpieces of prose and poetry and "examples of American 
eloquence." Patriotic selections, in which the reading books of 
the time abounded, were especial favorites, and an effort was made 
to combine interest in good reading with moral training and les- 
sons in patriotism. Such a subject matter and such a method 
promised, at that time, to develop a generous enthusiasm and a 
wholesome and devoted American spirit which proved to be power- 
ful influences in the early nineteenth century. 

The physical equipment of the academies was in most cases 
far from modern, though creditable buildings were occasionally 
found. As a rule buildings were of wood, with an occasional 
brick building in the towns and more populous communities. 
Blackboards were rare, and modern furniture was practically 
unknown. Maps were now and then reported in use, and oc- 
casionally schools reported the use of globes, "geometrical 

1 Knight, Public School Education in North Carolina, chap. iv. 



io8 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

apparatus," "geographical specimens and a chemical apparatus," 
"geographical specimens and chemical apparatus," "mathematical 
and philosophical apparatus." The teachers were often well 
equipped for their work, though few if any of the earlier ones 
were trained professionally. Discipline was usually rigid, and 
instruction was remarkably thorough and not infrequently ad- 
vanced for the time. In not a few cases students in some acad- 
emies were adequately prepared for the junior year in the leading 
colleges of the country. The remuneration received by the teach- 
ers varied greatly ; they were usually paid a stated salary 
agreed upon by the trustees and the teachers, or they received a 
combination of salary and tuition fees, or tuition fees only. From 
the evidence at hand it would appear that many of them were 
well paid. 

Several influences of the academy movement are apparent. In 
the first place, colleges and higher institutions began to receive 
hints that they were not filling the popular needs of the time 
and slowly began to adjust themselves. Programs of study were 
enlarged by adding some of the subjects taught in the secondary 
schools, and tradition was otherwise broken, though the effect 
was not always immediate. In addition to the reaction on the 
higher institutions, the academy movement stimulated the train- 
ing of teachers. With the so-called "revival" period, in the 
thirties and forties, the need for elementary teachers came to be 
widely and intensively felt, and the academies were looked to 
as the only source of supply. The academy, therefore, was the 
forerunner of the normal school. With the rapid growth of ele- 
mentary schools in the South just before the war the argument 
was frequently urged that the teachers for such schools should 
be trained in the academies. In a few cases normal instruction 
was given in the academies. Closely connected with the need for 
elementary teachers was the growth of secondary and higher edu- 
cation of women, which was stimulated by the academy. Finally, 
many of the academies were the nuclei from which numerous 
Southern colleges grew. 



THE ACADEMY MOVEMENT 109 

About 1850 the academy began to decline generally on account 
of the development of a strong feeling in favor of public control 
and public support of educational enterprises. This feeling ap- 
peared first in elementary education, but finally reached the field 
of secondary education also. After the Civil War, when public 
education received a new meaning and an added impetus under 
the powerful influence of the Peabody Fund, the public high 
school in the South began to develop and soon became the dom- 
inating institution of secondary education not only for that region 
but for American life generally. After the war, however, and 
the beginning of the public high-school movement not a few of the 
academies which survived the educational change of the period 
became preparatory schools, and some became celebrated as high- 
class "fitting" schools for the leading colleges of the country. 
This change of purpose in those which did survive the war has 
had a tendency to obscure the important fact that in the ante- 
bellum period college preparation was not the primary purpose of 
the academy. 

Between i860 and 1900 the academies began to be replaced by 
the public high schools. This was largely an experimental period 
for this new type of educational institution, and difficulties in its 
way had to be removed. Among these difficulties was that of 
getting the people to accept the idea that the support of secondary 
education is properly a function of the State. Largely through 
certain social and industrial changes this idea grew in strength, 
and the people gradually came to see the need for materially 
increasing the opportunities for high-school education for the 
youth of the State. Since 1900 the idea of high schools at public 
expense has been more widely accepted, and in the entire South 
marked progress has been made in secondary education. The 
needs of this part of the public-school system of the South and 
some of the difficulties yet in the way of its adequate expansion 
and development will be considered in a later chapter. 



no PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION AND FURTHER STUDY 

1. Make a study of academies in your State with reference to 
(a) purpose, (b) number, (c) curriculum and equipment, (d) influence, 
(e) peculiar characteristics, (/) pubHc aid, denominational interest, 
(g) methods of teaching, types of teachers, quaUty of the work done, 
discipline, and salaries of teachers. 

2. Account for the decline of the academy movement in your State. 

3. Compare the curriculum of a typical ante-bellum academy with 
that of a modern public high school. What peculiar advantages were 
afforded by the academy? 

4. Make a study of public high-school facilities now provided by 
your State. Are pubhc high schools of standard grade within easy 
reach of all the children of your county? What part of the school 
population of your State is attending standard high schools supported 
by public funds ? How does your State rank with other States in this 
respect ? 

5. Compare the high-school advantages offered the children of the 
largest town or city in your State with those offered the children of a 
typical rural county of the same State. Account for the inequalities in 
(a) buildings and equipment, (b) number and quality of teachers, 
(c) courses of study, (d) length of term, (e) length of recitations, 
(/) library facihties, (g) literary society and club activities. 

6. In what peculiar ways did the academies influence and affect 
secondary education in the South ? 

7. What lessons have the old academies for public education today? 
What in your opinion were the most valuable features of the academy ? 

8. Explain the significance of the manual-labor school movement. 
Account for its failure. Explain the rise of mihtary schools. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Acts of the Legislature of the various States. Asbury, Journal, 3 vols. 
New York, 1852. Barnard, The American Journal of Education, 30 vols. 
Hartford, 1855-1881. Boone, Education in the United States. New York, 
1893. BoYNTON, History of West Point and the Origin and Progress of the 
United States Military Academy. New York, 1863. Brown, The Making 
of Our Middle Schools. New York, 1903. Circulars of information, United 
States Bureau of Education: Bush, History of Education in Florida 



THE ACADEMY MOVEMENT iii 

(Washington, 1899) ; Clark, History of Education in Alabama (Wash- 
ington, 1889) ; Fay, The History of Education in Louisiana (Washington, 
1898) ; Jones, Education in Georgia (Washington, 1889) ; Lane, History of 
Education in Texas (Washington, 1903) ; Mayes, History of Education in 
Mississippi (Washington, 1899) ; Meriwether, History of Higher Educa- 
tion in South Carolina (Washington, 1899) ; Merriam, Higher Education 
in Tennessee (Washington, 1893) ; Shinn, History of Education in Arkansas 
(Washington, 1900) ; Smith, The History of Education in North Carolina 
(Washington, 1888). Coon, North Carolina Schools and Academies, 1790- 
1840, A Documentary History. Raleigh, 19x5. Cummings, The Early 
Schools of Methodism. New York, 1886. Cyclopedia of Education (edited 
by Paul Monroe), Vol. I. New York, 1911. Davis, Travels of Four Years 
and a Half in the United States. London, 1803. Dexter, History of 
Education in the United States. New York, 1904. Faust, The (German 
Element in the United States, 2 vols. Boston, 1909. Hanna, The Scotch- 
Irish, 2 vols. New York, 1902. Heatwole, A History of Education in 
Virginia. New York, 1916. Inglis, Principles of Secondary Education. 
Boston, 1918. Knight, Public School Education in North Carolina. Bos- 
ton, 1916. Knight, The Academy Movement in the South. Chapel Hill, 
1920. Longstreet, Georgia Scenes, New York, 1887. Mills, Statistics of 
South Carolina. Charleston, 1826. Raper, The Church and Private Schools 
in North Carolina. Greensboro, 1898. Revisals of the laws of the vari- 
ous States. Sherwood, A Gazetteer of Georgia. Washington, 1837. 
Steiner, Cokesbury College, the First Methodist Institution for Higher 
Education. Baltimore, 1895. Thomas, The History of the South Carolina 
Military Academy. Charleston, 1893. Weeks, History of Public School 
Education in Alabama. Washington, 1915. Weeks, History of Public School 
Education in Arkansas. Washington, 1912. Weeks, History of Public School 
Education in Tennessee (examined in manuscript). Weld, The First An- 
nual Report of the Society for Promoting Manual Labor in Literary Institu- 
tions. New York, 1833. White, Historical Collections of Georgia. New 
York, 1855. White, Statistics of the State of Georgia. Savannah, 1849. 
Whitney, The Land Laws of Tennessee. Chattanooga, 1891. 



CHAPTER V 

BEGINNINGS IN THE OLDER STATES 

Outline of the chapter, i. Before the War for Independence the 
conception of education as an obligation and function of the govern- 
ment had not gained great strength in the South. But the need for 
wider educational opportunity was beginning to be recognized. 

2. This need was given attention by Jefferson and other leaders of 
the period, and with the formation of the national government a new 
social consciousness began to develop. Many of the States early made 
constitutional provisions for schools. 

3. In the South the democratic theory of education was given slight 
impetus by the reform work of Jefferson and his coworkers, and this 
work later had quite a wide influence. 

4. Jefferson's early work for public-school education in Virginia was 
not immediately successful, but it was not without influence. His 
school plans of 1779 and 1796 were significant, and the school law of 
1818 became the legal basis of popular educational practices in 
Virginia before i860. 

5. Conditions in South Carolina before 1840 were not altogether 
unlike those in Virginia. Sectional jealousies had a retarding influence 
on schools. The act of 181 1 formed the basis of pubHc educational 
work in South Carolina during the ante-bellum period. 

6. The acts of 1784 and 1822 were important legal beginnings of 
public-school endeavor in Georgia, and the school plan provided by 
the latter act continued until the second quarter of the nineteenth 
century. It was defective, but its inauguration marked a forward step. 

7. Public education in Tennessee was closely connected with the 
public lands of that State. The first steps toward establishing a public- 
school system was taken in 1823. The school law was defective, but 
it served to stimulate educational interest. Slight improvements were 
made in 1830, and the early plans underwent many modifications later. 

8. North Carolina was the first of the Southern States to have a 
constitutional requirement for schools and the first of all the States 



BEGINNINGS IN THE OLDER STATES 113 

to organize a university, but it was the last of the older Southern States 
to enact a pubHc-school law. Local conditions delayed action. The 
law of 1839 was somewhat advanced and became the basis of rather 
creditable educational effort before i860. 

9. In general, early educational efforts in the five older Southern 
States were feeble. The laws were permissive and otherwise defective, 
and the school plans set up on them were imperfect. The South did 
not early commit itself fully to the principle of equahty of educational 
opportunity, but it was able to make slightly hopeful beginnings during 
the second quarter of the nineteenth century. 

Prior to the War for Independence the conception of education 
as a function of the State had gained only little strength in the 
South. Up to that time the principal educational facilities were 
furnished by charity schools, by private pay schools or academies 
(which were discussed in the preceding chapter), and by the 
apprenticeship system. And as few as were the opportunities fur- 
nished by these agencies, many such opportunities decreased just 
after the war, and education reached low ebb. This was the condi- 
tion in other sections, however, as well as in the South. The 
growing disputes with England, their culmination in a war which 
left the new States greatly impoverished and depleted, and the 
huge debt incurred by the war left little time for attention to mat- 
ters of education. Moreover, the commercial life of the South was 
deadened, there were internal troubles, and the agricultural condi- 
tions were primitive and unpromising. For several years follow- 
ing the close of the war political, social, and economic conditions 
were critical and discouraging. Life in the South, as elsewhere 
in the new nation, was full of intense struggles, dangers, and priva- 
tions. Forests had to be cut, means of communication had to be 
established, and the first laws of nature had to be obeyed. It was 
before the day of inventions and labor-saving machinery, and 
material prosperity was naturally slow to manifest itself. The 
population was sparse, and few interests appeared on which com- 
munity cooperation could be encouraged and promoted. The need 
of education, therefore, appeared relatively small as a community 



114 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

interest ; and the cause of education had difficulty in getting the 
hearing it deserved. Education was still thought of as a private 
matter, under the control of the family or the Church ; and as a 
public concern it is not surprising that it was not highly regarded 
generally. 

In spite of these facts, however, it was during the revolutionary 
period and the so-called "critical period" which followed that 
the need of schools began to be felt by those leaders who felt the 
force and the significance of the changed conditions. Evidence 
of interest in schools as a public necessity was not widespread, but 
it was significantly reflected during the time. Nowhere was it 
more striking, perhaps, than in the work of Thomas Jefferson, the 
great apostle of democracy. As early as 1779 he introduced into 
the Legislature of Virginia his famous "bill for a more general 
diffusion of knowledge," which not only embodied a creditable plan 
for a public-school system for that State but was also the first 
effort made for the establishment of a system of free schools in 
America. The first section of that bill said : 

Whereas, it appeareth that however certain forms of government 
are better calculated than others to protect individuals in the free 
exercises of their natural rights, and are at the same time themselves 
better guarded against degeneracy, yet experience hath shown that 
even under the best forms those intrusted with power have, in time 
and by slow operation, perverted it into tyranny ; and it is believed 
that the most effectual means of preventing this would be to illuminate, 
as far as practicable, the minds of the people at large, and mor6 
especially to give them knowledge of those facts which history exhib- 
iteth, that, possessed thereby of the experience of other ages and 
countries, they may be enabled to know ambition under all its shapes, 
and prompt to exert their natural powers to defeat its purpose. And, 
whereas, it is generally true that the people will be happiest whose 
laws are best and are best administered, and that laws will be wisely 
formed and honestly administered, in proportion as those who form 
and administer them are wise and honest ; whence it becomes expedient 
for promoting the public happiness, that those persons whom nature 
has endowed with genius and virtue should be rendered by liberal 
education worthy to receive and able to guard the sacred deposit of 



BEGINNINGS IN THE OLDER STATES 115 

the rights and liberties of the fellow-citizens, and that they should be 
called to that charge without regard to wealth, birth, or other accidental 
condition or circumstance ; but the indigence of the greater number 
disabling them from so educating, at their own expense, those of their 
children whom nature hath fitly formed and disposed to become use- 
ful instruments for the pubUc, it is better that such should be sought 
for and educated at the common expense of all, than that the happi- 
ness of all should be confined to the weak or wicked. 

The important enactment of Congress, adopted July 13, 1787, 
for the government of the United States, northwest of the Ohio 
River, and known as the Northwest Ordinance, declared: 

Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good govern- 
ment and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of educa- 
tion shall forever be encouraged. 

General Francis Marion, the "Swamp Fox" of Revolutionary 
fame, in a statement made just before his death, in 1795, on the 
need for popular education in South Carolina, said : 

God preserve our Legislature from penny wit and pound foolish- 
ness. What ! Keep a nation in ignorance rather than vote a httle of 
theif own money for education! . . , We fought for self-government; 
and God hath pleased to give us one better calculated, perhaps, to 
protect our rights and foster our virtues and call forth our energies 
and advance our condition nearer to perfection and happiness, than 
any government that ever was framed under the sun. But what 
signifies this government, divine as it is, if it be not known and prized 
as it deserves? This is best done by free schools. 

Men will always fight for their government according to their 
sense of its value. To value it aright they must understand it. This 
they cannot do without education. And, as a large portion of the 
children are poor, and can never attain that inestimable blessing with- 
out the aid of government, it is plainly the duty of government to 
bestow it freely upon them. The more perfect the government, the 
greater the duty to make it well known. Selfish and oppressive govern- 
ments must "hate the light and fear to come to it, because their 
deeds are evil." But a fair and cheap government, like our republic, 
"longs for the light and rejoices to come to the Ught, that it may be 



ii6 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

manifested to come from God," and well worthy of the vigilance and 
valor that an enlightened nation can rally for its defense. A good gov- 
ernment can hardly ever be half anxious enough to give its citizens a 
thorough knowledge of its own excellencies. For, as some of the most 
valuable truths, for lack of promulgation, have been lost, so the best 
government on earth, if not widely known and prized, may be 
subverted. 

The Constitution adopted in 1789 for the government of the 
new nation contained no mention of education. But in his first 
message to Congress, January 8, 1790, President Washington 
called several interesting objects to the attention of that body. 
Among these were "uniformity in the currency, weights, and 
measures," the post office, and post roads, in all of which subjects 
he took a deep interest. But another subject lay equally close to 
his heart, and he said : 

Nor am I less persuaded, that you will agree with me in opinion, 
that there is nothing which can better deserve your patronage than 
the promotion of science and literature. Knowledge is in every coun- 
try the surest basis of public happiness. In one, in which the measures 
of government receive their impression so immediately from the 
sense of the community, as in ours, it is proportionably essential. To 
the security of a free constitution it contributes in various ways ; by 
convincing those who are intrusted with the public administration 
that every valuable end of government is best answered by the en- 
lightened confidence of the people, and by teaching the people them- 
selves to know and to value their own rights ; to discern and provide 
against invasions of them ; to distinguish between oppression and the 
necessary exercise of lawful authority, between burdens proceeding 
from a disregard to their convenience and those resulting from the 
inevitable exigencies of society ; to discriminate the spirit of Hberty 
from that of Hcentiousness, cherishing the first and avoiding the last, 
and uniting a speedy but temperate vigilance against encroachments, 
with an inviolable respect to the laws. 

These selections reflect an interesting theory of public education 
as held by some of the leading men of the South, and, indeed, of 
the entire country, following independence from England. A new 



BEGINNINGS IN THE OLDER STATES 117 

era had dawned for America. Public-spirited leaders were now be- 
ginning to look beyond local narrowness and jealousies, which 
had widely prevailed, and to consider the larger interests of the 
whole people. Lack of educational facilities for the masses began 
to make keen and persistent appeal to such men. Public utter- 
ances reflected the growing belief that education should be suitably 
and adequately provided so that the people could properly appreci- 
ate and thoroughly understand and defend their natural, civil, and 
political rights. Schools and the means of education were re- 
garded as the mortal enemy to arbitrary and despotic government ; 
they were the surest basis of liberty and equality. Moreover, they 
would prevent youth from acquiring "unreasonable predilections 
in favor of alien institutions and manners " and prejudices against 
those of their own country "and against the condition of society, 
of which their interest and duty require them to become members." 
Again, the education of the boys and girls of the land was neces- 
sary to produce in them an enthusiastic attachment to their own 
country and to insure a jealous support of its constitution, its 
laws, and its government. These ideals, it was urged, should be 
infused in every citizen from his infancy. In this respect the edu- 
cational problem then was not unlike the most important task for 
education now, and in the experience of that period are lessons for 
education today. 

With independence and the formation of the national govern- 
ment a new social consciousness began to develop. There appeared 
a general quickening of a new spirit which began to make itself 
felt in many ways. A great advance was made in denominational 
activity and in educational enterprises of many kinds ; numerous 
foreign and home-mission boards were organized ; theological 
institutions soon began to appear ; new educational institutions of 
secondary and collegiate grade were established, and more ade- 
quate provisions were made for older ones ; and organizations 
for promoting moral reform and social uplift were formed. These 
and other movements attracted attention to a large degree. A 
new ideal of education in a broad sense was in the making. 



ii8 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

This new theory of education began early and grew steadily, as 
shown by the social movements of the half century from 1775 to 
1825. But its development in the bouth was slow. The first sig- 
nificant stage in its growth, however, may be noticed in early 
constitutional provisions for schools and the means of education. 
As early as May, 1776, the Continental Congress had recom- 
mended to the various States the adoption of "such government as 
shall, in the opinion of the representatives of the people, best 
conduce to the happiness and safety of their constituents in 
particular and America in general." Following this recommenda- 
tion, all the States except Connecticut and Rhode Island, which 
regarded their colonial charters adequate for the changed condi- 
tions, framed and adopted constitutions. Some of them were 
naturally imperfect, and revisions or amendments were soon made. 
All the States, however, did not make provisions for education in 
their original constitutions ; and the lawmaking bodies in many of 
those States which did make such provisions did not immediately 
and rigidly observe the constitutional mandates.^ 

Of the five Southern States in the Union before 1800 North 
Carolina, whose original constitution was adopted in 1776, and 
Georgia, whose first constitution was adopted in 1777, made con- 
stitutional provisions for education. The constitution of Virginia, 
originally adopted in 1776, was silent on the subject of education 
and remained silent until 1851. The original constitution of South 
Carolina was adopted in 1776, another was formed two years later, 
and a third in 1790; several revisions or amendments were later 
made, but in none of these was anything said about education. 
The constitution of 1865, framed in accordance with the presi- 
dential plan of reconstruction, also remained silent on the subject. 
The first constitutional provision for education in that State did 
not appear, therefore, until 1868. Tennessee, admitted to the 

1 Those which did incorporate educational provisions before 1800 were 
Pennsylvania, 1776 ; North Carolina, 1776 ; Georgia, 1777 ; Vermont, 1777 ; 
Massachusetts, 1780; New Hampshire, 1784; Vermont, 1787; Pennsylvania, 
1790 ; Delaware, 1792 ; and Georgia, 1798. 



BEGINNINGS IN THE OLDER STATES 119 

Union in 1796, made no constitutional provision for education, 
and none appeared until 1835. All the other Southern States, ex- 
cept Louisiana, made constitutional provisions for education on 
admission to the Union as follows: Mississippi, in 1817; Ala- 
bama, in 1819 ; Arkansas, in 1836 ; Florida, in 1845^ ; and Texas, 
in 1845. Louisiana came into the Union in 181 2, but its constitu- 
tion contained no educational provision until 1845. The Territory 
of Orleans, however, had passed some educational legislation as 
early as 1805 ; and the constitution of the Republic of Texas, in 
1836, had made provisions for schools. 

North Carolina was the first of the Southern group and the 
second of all the United States to make constitutional provision 
for schools. This provision, which was adopted December 18, 
1776, was almost a literal copy of action of the constitution of 
Pennsylvania, which had been adopted September 28 of the same 
year. That section, which was continued in the revised constitu- 
tion of 1835, said: 

That a school or schools shall be established by the Legislature, for 
the convenient instruction of youth, with such salaries to the masters, 
paid by the public, as may enable them to instruct at low prices ; and 
all useful learning shall be duly encouraged and promoted in one or 
more universities. 

Georgia was the second Southern State and the third of all the 
States to incorporate an educational provision in its original con- 
stitution, which was adopted February 5, 1777. The provision 
said: "Schools shall be erected in each county, and supported 
at the general expense of the State, as the Legislature shall here- 
after point out." Twelve years later Georgia adopted another 
constitution, but it contained no reference to education. A third 
constitution was adopted in 1 798 and provided : 

The arts and sciences shall be promoted, in one or more seminaries 
of learning ; and the Legislature shall, as soon as conveniently may be, 

^The constitution of Florida was framed in 1838, but the State was not 
admitted to the Union until 1845. 



120 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

give such further donations and privileges to those already established 
as may be necessary to secure the objects of their institution ; and it 
shall be the duty of the general assembly, at their next session, to pro- 
vide effectual measures for the improvement and permanent security 
of the funds and endowments of such institutions. 

These were all the educational provisions incorporated in the 
constitutions of the Southern States before 1817, when Mississippi 
entered the Union. In December of that year a constitution was 
adopted for that State which contained the educational provision 
of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, and this was continued in the 
constitution of 1832 and of 1865 of that State. Alabama followed, 
December 14, 1819, with the following constitutional provision: 

Schools, and the means of education, shall forever be encouraged in 
this State : and the General Assembly shall take measures to preserve, 
from unnecessary waste or damage, such lands as are or hereafter may 
be, granted by the United States for the use of schools within each 
township in this State, and apply the funds, which may be raised from 
such lands, in strict conformity to the object of such grant. The 
General Assembly shall take like measures for the improvement of 
such lands as have been or may be hereafter granted by the United 
States to this State, for the support of a seminary of learning, and the 
moneys which may be raised from such lands, by rent, lease or sale, 
or from any quarter, for the purpose aforesaid, shall be and remain a 
fund for the exclusive support of a state university, for the promotion 
of the arts, literature and the sciences ; and it shall be the duty of the 
General Assembly, as early as may be, to provide effectual means for 
the improvement and permanent security of the funds and the endow- 
ments of such institution. 

The constitution of Tennessee, which had come into the Union 
in 1796, contained no educational provision until March, 1835, 
when the following became a part of the fundamental law of 
that State : ^ 

^It must not be inferred that no legislative action in behalf of education 
was taken in those States whose constitutions were lacking in educational 
provisions. Not a few States passed educational laws of one kind or an- 
other before the constitutions spoke on the subject of schools. 



BEGINNINGS IN THE OLDER STATES 121 

Knowledge, learning, and virtue being essential to the preservation 
of republican institutions, and the diffusion of the opportunities and 
advantages of education throughout the different portions of the State 
being highly conducive to the promotion of this end, it shall be the 
duty of the General Assembly, in all future periods of this government, 
to cherish Hterature and science. And the fund called "the common 
school fund," and all the lands and proceeds thereof, dividends, stocks, 
and other property of every description whatever, heretofore by law 
appropriated by the General Assembly of this State for the uses of 
common schools, and all such as shall hereafter be appropriated, shall 
remain a perpetual fund, the principal of which shall never be dimin- 
ished by legislative appropriation, and the interest thereof shall be 
inviolably appropriated to the support and encouragement of common 
schools throughout the State, and for the equal benefit of all the people 
thereof ; and no law shall be made authorizing said fund, or any part 
thereof to be diverted to any other use than the support and en- 
couragement of common schools ; and it shall be the duty of the 
General Assembly to appoint a board of commissioners, for such term 
of time as they may think proper who shall have the general superin- 
tendence of said fund, and who shall make a report of the conditions 
of the same, from time to time, under such rules, regulations, and 
restrictions as may be required by law : Provided, That if at any 
time hereafter a division of the public lands of the United States, or 
any of the money arising from the sale of such lands, shall be made 
among the individual States, the part of such lands or money coming 
to this State shall be devoted to the purposes of education and internal 
improvement, and shall never be applied to any other purpose. 

The above provisions shall not be construed to prevent the Legis- 
lature from carrying into effect any laws that have been passed in 
favor of the colleges, academies, or from authorizing heirs or distrib- 
utees to receive and enjoy escheated property, under such rules and 
regulations as from time to time may be prescribed by law. 

After 1835, which marks the beginning of a new period in edu- 
cational growth in this country, education came to be more fully 
and definitely dealt with in the constitutions of the various 
States. This change, which reflects itself in the constitutional 
and legislative provisions for education, was produced by the rapid 
growth of democracy. Before 1835 educational legislation was 



1J2 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

couched in general and very often in vague language ; afterwards, 
however, specific and definite terms generally characterized consti- 
tutional and legislative enactments not only on education but 
on other subjects as well. A remarkable interest in education be- 
gan to appear in the movement known as the American educa- 
tional renaissance. Those States which entered the Union after 
1835, therefore, were doubtless guided by the educational ex- 
perience of their older sisters and were thus greatly influenced 
in their formulation of educational legislation. Those of the 
Southern States which in constitutional and legislative action 
showed a response to this influence will be treated in another chap- 
ter. In the main their tendency was toward more specific and 
adequate educational provisions than appeared in some of the 
older States. 

The awakening which began in the thirties owed its origin to 
the ideal of democracy. In the South the concept of educational 
endeavor as a governmental function had its beginning in the 
remarkable reform program which Jefferson and his coworkers 
launched and supported during and immediately following the 
Revolution. Although at first a movement of a local character, 
certain phases of the work of these Virginia reformers were far- 
reaching in their influences. Their program, which was led by 
Jefferson, consisted of a series of measures which formed a system 
on which a true democratic form of government could be estab- 
lished. Chief among these measures was the divorce of the 
Church and the State and the establishment of the rights of 
conscience, the abolition of entail and the law of primogeniture, 
the revision of the laws, and the celebrated movement for a 
school system. 

The influence of the Church in Virginia was briefly noted in 
Chapter II. It remains to be noted here that the Establishment 
was finally weakened by a series of legislative enactments dealing 
with the religious question and by its attempt to controvert an 
evangelical movement which had spread from England and had 
awakened a popular emotion and reached a class of people hitherto 



BEGINNINGS IN THE OLDER STATES 123 

not influenced by the Establishment. These enactments began 
with the bill of rights, which contained a "broad declaration 
of religious liberty" and pronounced "a decree of absolute divorce 
between Church and State," ^ and were demanded by the petitions 
of hundreds of dissenters who had grown impatient at the legal 
restrictions placed on them. By the repeal of the law which im- 
posed penalties for nonconformity and for failure to support the 
Establishment, which was achieved after twenty-five days of 
heated debate in 1776; by gradual concessions made to the 
liberal party up to 1786, when the famous act establishing religious 
freedom was passed ; by the defeat of the movement for general 
assessment and the repeal, in 1787, of the incorporation act, 
thus making all churches "independent of the civil power, as to 
doctrine, discipline, and means of support " ; and finally by set- 
tling, in 1802, the question of the ownership of the glebes and 
other church property, the last vestige of the Established Church 
in Virginia was destroyed. Persecution for religious causes ceased 
and religious qualifications for civil office were abandoned. 

Another blow which Jefferson and his reforming party struck 
was aimed at the system of entail and is said to have been an 
avowed blow at the aristocracy. By abolishing entail, lands and 
slaves were to be held in fee simple and could be sold for debt ; 
and the accumulation and perpetuation of enormous wealth in a 
few families, who had monopolized the civil honors of the colony, 
were prevented. Thus the whole system of laws and usages which 
were designed to prevent a distribution of wealth crashed almost 
in a day. The abolition of primogeniture and the unequal dis- 
tribution of inheritances followed as a twin measure and made 
possible the equal distribution of property among heirs, thus re- 
moving feudalistic and dangerous distinctions. 

A complete revision of the laws, including British usages and 
colonial enactments from 16 19, was also a part of the reform 
program. "The laws of Virginia were a chaos of obsolete and 

lEckenrode, Separation of Church and State in Virginia. 



124 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

antiquated enactments, good for lawyers, bad for clients." The 
revision was finally completed in 1779, and the revised measures 
were presented in more than one hundred clear and definite bills. 
These were taken up separately and acted upon one by one, and 
during the next six or seven years were enacted into law. 

Jefferson's great faith in the mass of the people made him an 
untiring supporter of popular education. He believed that the 
people were capable of self-government, that they meant well, and 
that they would act well whenever they understood. He was 
eager to enable them to understand by education and training 
and accordingly introduced his famous school bill into the Vir- 
ginia Legislature in 1779. 

The plan proposed was based on Jefferson's political theory of 
local self-government. It provided for a division of the counties 
into "hundreds," of ''such convenient size that all the children 
within each hundred may daily attend the school to be estab- 
lished therein." The electors of each such division were to se- 
lect the site for the schoolhouse, which was to be built and kept 
in repair by the three county aldermen, who were to be chosen 
by the qualified electors of the county. At each school "all the 
free children, male and female, resident within the respective 
hundred, shall be entitled to receive tuition gratis, for the term 
of three years, and as much longer, at their private expense, as 
their parents, guardians, or friends, shall think proper." The 
subjects of reading, writing, and common arithmetic were to be 
taught from books which would at the same time acquaint the 
children with Greek, Roman, English, and American history. An 
overseer "eminent for his learning, integrity, and fidelity to the 
commonwealth" was to be appointed annually by the county 
aldermen to superintend " every ten of these schools." His duties 
were to appoint teachers, to examine the pupils, and to visit and 
have general control over the schools. The salary of the teacher 
and all other expenses connected with each school were to be 
provided by the hundred "in such manner as other county ex- 
penses are by law directed to be provided." 



BEGINNINGS IN THE OLDER STATES 125 

In order "that grammar schools may be rendered convenient 
to the youth of every part of the commonwealth" the various 
counties were to be districted, two or more counties forming one 
district. In each district a grammar school was to be established 
and equipped with one hundred acres of land, a brick or stone 
house, with necessary offices, "a room for the school, a hall to 
dine in, four rooms for a master and usher, and ten or twelve 
lodging rooms for the scholars." The expense of establishing 
and equipping these schools was to be paid out of the public 
treasury. Latin and Greek, English grammar, geography, and the 
"higher parts of numerical arithmetic" were to constitute the cur- 
riculum. A visitor from each county composing the district was 
to be appointed by the overseers, with powers over the grammar 
schools similar to the powers of the overseers over the primary 
schools, and, in addition, "to settle the price of tuition to be paid 
by the scholars." Every overseer of the elementary schools was 
to select from among the boys who had spent two years at one of 
the schools under his direction, " one of the best and most promis- 
ing in genius and disposition . . . without favor or affection," 
who was to be educated and boarded at the grammar school of his 
district for one, two, or more years, according to his "genius 
and disposition." Those whose parents were too poor to give them 
further education were, however, to have preference. The most 
promising ones of those who were advanced through the grammar 
schools were to be "educated, boarded, and clothed, three years" 
at public expense at William and IMary College, which was also to 
be improved and enlarged. 

The strong features as well as the weaknesses of this plan are 
obvious to the modern student of education. It shows the influ- 
ence of the educational ideas of certain French revolutionists 
whom Jefferson greatly admired, and was very advanced for the 
time. Had it been adopted a highly creditable public-school sys- 
tem would have been set up in Virginia before 1800. The Legisla- 
ture did receive the plan with some interest, but never acted on it. 
The confusion of the times and the heavy expense which the 



126 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

proposed system would have involved helped to work its defeat. 
The matter of determining the schools proposed was to be in the 
hands of the landed gentry, who were already provided with 
private schools and did not keenly feel the need of the system 
proposed. Therefore they were not likely to tax themselves 
for schools which they would not patronize. Moreover, the ab- 
sence of a strong middle class to support it helped to bring 
failure to the plan. 

These early educational labors of Jefferson were not lost, how- 
ever, even though they were not immediately successful in Vir- 
ginia. The subject of education there and elsewhere began to 
receive careful attention, and Jefferson's zeal in its cause never 
flagged. Moreover, the Legislature frequently gave attention to 
proposed educational legislation, which showed his influence and 
the influence of the bill of 1779. 

The State seemed to hang back from adopting any practical 
educational plan, however, until 1796. In that year an act was 
passed, to go into effect January i, 1797, which in the main em- 
bodied Jefferson's original plan ; and although it, too, was of a 
permissive and discretionary character, nevertheless its passage 
was very significant in the educational growth of that State. 
The lofty words and sentiment of its preamble were characteristic 
of educational writings of the time : 

Whereas it appeareth that the great advantages, which civilized and 
polished nations enjoy, beyond the savage and barbarous nations of the 
world, are principally derived from the invention and use of letters, 
by means whereof the knowledge and experience of past ages are re- 
corded and transmitted, so that man, availing himself in succession 
of the accumulated wisdom and discoveries of his predecessors, is 
enabled more successfully to pursue and improve not only those acts 
which contribute to the support, convenience, and ornament of life, 
but those also, which tend to illumine and enable his understanding and 
his nature. 

And whereas, upon a review of the history of mankind, it seemeth 
that however favorable republican government, founded on the prin- 
ciples of equal liberty, justice, and order, may be to human happiness. 



BEGINNINGS IN THE OLDER STATES 127 

no real stability, or lasting permanency thereof can be rationally 
hoped for, if the minds of the citizens be not rendered liberal and 
humane, and be not fully impressed with the importance of those prin- 
ciples from whence these blessings proceed : With a view, therefore, to 
lay the first foundations of a system of education, which may tend to 
produce these desirable purposes, Be it enacted by the general assem- 
bly, etc. 

The plan proposed by this act was worthy and somewhat ad- 
vanced for the time and contained the elements of a thorough 
free-school system for the white children of the State. But it was 
weakened by a clause which left the entire matter discretionary 
with the county courts to say when the proposed school system 
should go into operation in the various counties. Moreover, each 
county was to provide for the expense of its own schools. The 
greater burden of educating the children of the community would 
have fallen, therefore, on the wealthier part ; and since the county 
magistrates were usually wealthy country gentlemen, it is not 
amazing that the plan was not adopted in any county and that 
the law soon became a dead letter. 

In spite of the appeals of certain public-spirited leaders who 
urged attention to the subject, nothing further was achieved for 
public education in Virginia until the creation of the literary 
fund in 1810. Educational sentiment was developing slowly, and 
the establishment of this public-school endowment somewhat stim- 
ulated interest in schools. During the next few years attention 
was called to the educational needs of the State, and the Legisla- 
ture was urged to remove this "reproach to our public spirit." The 
literary board reported a school plan in 181 6, and a bill con- 
formable to it was presented to the Legislature and passed the 
House, but failed in the Senate. Virginia again missed the oppor- 
tunity of inaugurating a plan which contained the principles of a 
fairly adequate and complete system of education. 

Although the cause of public education was again defeated the 
agitation for schools did not cease. At the meeting of the Leg- 
islature in December, 181 7, Governor Preston urged attention to 



128 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

this great object, saying, "Give to all, rich and poor, equally 
the means of instruction." By this time the literary fund was 
generally considered large enough to yield an income sufficient to 
render considerable educational service. The problem now seemed 
simplified ; and an act was passed February 21, 18 18, to appropri- 
ate a part of the revenue of the literary fund for the education 
of poor children. This act was the basis of the so-called "pauper" 
school system of Virginia, which continued throughout the ante- 
bellum period. 

Under the provisions of this law the sum of $45,000 was to be 
appropriated annually from the income of the literary fund, to be 
distributed to the counties, cities, and towns on the basis of their 
free white population. The county courts were to appoint school 
commissioners (varying in number according to the size of the 
county), who were to determine the number of poor children for 
whom their quota of the annual appropriation would afford in- 
struction. Each commissioner was to select as many poor children, 
with the consent of their parents or guardians, as he thought 
expedient. These were to be placed in such schools as were 
convenient, and arrangements were to be made with the teachers 
for instructing them at a definite rate, usually three or four cents, 
for each day such children were in actual attendance. The children 
were to be taught reading, writing, and arithmetic ; and the ex- 
penses of their tuition and of their books and writing materials 
were to be paid out of the county quota of the annual appropria- 
tion. The commissioners were to make annual reports to the 
literary board, giving the number of poor children in the county, 
the number in school, the cost of their tuition and supplies, 
and such other facts as would show the operation of the 
system. The same law created the University of Virginia and 
appropriated from the literary fund the sum of $15,000 for 
its support. 

Thus, after an agitation which extended over nearly forty 
years the Old Dominion in a small measure committed itself to 
the theory of public schools. But the act passed in 18 18 was de- 



BEGINNINGS IN THE OLDER STATES 129 

fective in principle and was only a feeble acceptance of Jefferson's 
educational idea. In the main, however, it continued the principal 
legal basis of popular educational practice in that State throughout 
the ante-bellum period. The actual operation of the plan thus 
created and subsequent efforts for educational improvement in 
Virginia will be treated in another chapter. 

Actual educational conditions in South Carolina before 1840 
were in many respects very similar to the conditions in Virginia 
during that time. The theory of education was practically the 
same in both States ; the constitution of each State was tardy 
in making educational provisions ; educational interests in each 
were left to the whims of the Legislature, which was often indif- 
ferent and at times hostile ; and each State early inaugurated a 
school plan for the less prosperous part of its population which 
was so defective in principle as practically to work its own 
defeat. In provisions for school support, however, the two 
States differed somewhat. The support of schools in Virginia came 
from the income of the permanent public endowment created 
in 1 8 10; while South Carolina, which had no such public fund 
until after the Civil War, supported its so-called free schools dur- 
ing the ante-bellum period by annual legislative appropriations. 
In South Carolina, however, evidences of educational interest 
appeared early, although there, as in Virginia, local difficulties 
continued obstinate and greatly hindered a satisfactory growth 
of educational opportunity. 

One of the difficulties was sectional jealousy in the State. The 
lower section of South Carolina was wealthy and cultured, many 
of its citizens having been trained in the North or in Europe ; 
while the upper section was the more populous, but deficient in 
education and wealth. The members of the House of Represent- 
atives were apportioned on the basis of wealth rather than on 
that of population ; and as its wealth increased, the people of the 
upper section of the State demanded a more equitable share in 
governmental affairs. The people of the lower section were not 
willing to place the affairs of the State in the hands of the 



130 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

uneducated, "and wisely concluded that it was best to afford the 
means of improvement, until they were fitted to assume control."^ 
The organization and work of certain societies (see Chapter II) 
had served as steps to this end and had influence in uniting 
the two sections of the State. But jealousy continued. In the 
Legislature of 1801, when the South Carolina College was estab- 
lished, there was sharp opposition, which persisted for some 
time; and the following year the Legislature received from 
the upper section two petitions urging that the act establishing 
the college be repealed. This sectional jealousy was among the 
causes which prevented South Carolina from establishing before 
the Civil War a system of schools commensurate with its needs 
and resources. Nor did the plan adopted during the ante-bellum 
period meet the expectations of its creators. But the subject 
of popular education early claimed serious attention and was 
agitated widely and continuously before i860. One of the early 
significant statements on the need of schools appeared in the 
Charleston Courier in 1803 : "We see great incomes wasted, great 
grandeur in equipage . . . but we do not see the country studded 
up and down with those precious jewels of a State, jree schools^ 
And in his message to the Legislature in 181 1 Governor Henry 
Middleton said : 

I cannot suffer the present occasion to pass, without bringing to 
your view the propriety of establishing jree schools, in all those parts 
of the State where such institutions are wanted ; there can scarcely be 
a difference of opinion of the advantages which a country must gener- 
ally derive from the instruction of its people; but one of the first objects 
of a government, founded on popular rights, should be to diffuse the 
benefits of education as widely as possible ; and to enlighten and inform 
the whole mass of that people, whose collective will controls and 
directs the energies of the country. A system of general instruction is 
essential to the preservation of our political institutions. Your liberal 
support of the South Carolina College, a monument of your veneration 
for science and learning, testifies your anxious solicitude to secure to 
our youth the highest advantages of instruction, and doubtless that 

1 Meriwether, History of Higher Education in South Carolina, pp. 133, 134. 



BEGINNINGS IN THE OLDER STATES 131 

seminary will yield annually on accession of able and virtuous citizens 
to the State ; but those alone whose affluent circumstances have en- 
abled them to pass through certain preparatory studies, can enjoy the 
benefit of that institution; it is now hoped that you will employ 
some portion of your funds in procuring the elements of education for 
the children of indigent persons. Reading, writing and arithmetic, are 
highly essential to those children who must owe their advancement in 
life to their industry ; and while they are acquiring the keys of knowl- 
edge, their hearts may be formed to a proper sense of moral and 
religious excellence. To every real philanthropist, this must be an 
object of great interest, when it is considered that the diffusion of 
useful knowledge has ever been found the means of correcting the 
propensity of vice, and of diminishing the number of crimes. 

Petitions for free schools were presented to this Legislature 
from citizens of the districts of Fairfield, Chester, Williamsburg, 
Darlington, Edgefield, Barnwell, York, St. Stephen's, St. James's, 
Santee, St. John's, Colleton,and St. Peter's, andthesewere referred, 
together with the governor's message on the same subject, to the 
proper committees. A joint committee on education was appointed 
from both Houses, and early in December it regularly reported a 
bill to establish free schools throughout the State. The bill passed 
the Senate without a roll call and the House by a vote of seventy- 
two to fifteen. This act, which seems to have been designed as the 
initial movement to create and set in operation a school system 
which would furnish elementary instruction to all the children of 
the State, not only was the basis of the only school plan attempted 
in South Carolina before i860, but, with the exception of an act 
passed in 1835, was the most important legislative enactment for 
schools in that State throughout the entire ante-bellum period. 

The law provided for the legislative appointment, one every 
three years, of a board of school commissioners for each election 
district, the size of the board depending on the size of the district. 
This board was to establish in each district of the State as many 
schools as it had members in the House of Representatives, and 
in the administration of his duties each commissioner was to be 
assisted by three trustees for each school. The commissioners 



132 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

were to determine the location of the schools ; to examine, appoint, 
and remove teachers ; to admit pupils, the local trustees making 
recommendations regarding their fitness ; to have general super- 
vision over all free-school interests in their districts ; to draw on 
the treasurer of the State for the amounts due teachers, naming 
each one and giving the number of his school, his division in the 
district, and his time of service ; and to make annual reports of 
school statistics to the Legislature. Each election district was to 
receive for free-school support the sum of S300 annually for every 
representative it had in the Legislature. The schools were to be 
free to all citizens of the State, but if more children should apply 
for admission than could be accommodated preference should be 
given to poor orphans and the children of indigent parents. This 
provision proved to be the chief defect of the plan. The original 
purpose of the law and of the system which it created was to fur- 
nish a substantial English education to all the children of the 
State, but in spite of its purpose the plan came early to be re- 
garded as merely for the poor and was so regarded throughout 
the ante-bellum period. 

Until a sufficient number of schools could be set up the officials 
were empowered to convert those which were begun into "moving 
schools," if by this means the purposes of the act could be better 
promoted. Moreover, the law recognized the existence of other 
schools in the State: 

In all districts where a school or schools are already, or may here- 
after be established by private funds or individual subscription, it 
shall be lawful for the commissioners of the free-schools, at their 
discretion, to unite such part or parts of the fund provided by this 
act for such district with such school or schools, in such manner as 
may appear to them best calculated to promote the objects of this act. 

The act of 181 1 remained practically the only legislation on the 
subject of free schools in South Carolina, with the exception of a 
supplementary act passed in 1835 ^^'^ occasional resolutions of 
the Legislature. The law of 1835 was in principle the same 
as that of the original law except that it provided for imposing 



BEGINNINGS IN THE OLDER STATES 133 

penalties on the commissioners for failure to perform their duties. 
In spite of this provision, however, these officers were frequently 
careless and indifferent, and the penalties prescribed were rarely 
imposed. The school plan thus provided by these two acts was 
defective in principle, but it remained the basis of all that was 
accomplished for public-school education in South Carolina before 
i860. The operation of the system and the attempts to bring 
about educational reform during that period will be discussed 
in another chapter. 

No Southern State began its career as a member of the Union 
with more promising educational prospects than Georgia. Though 
the youngest of the original colonies it was among the first of 
the States to make constitutional provisions for education (see page 
119), and its early efforts signalized the purpose of inaugurating an 
educational policy which would doubtless have closely approxi- 
mated the ideal of Thomas Jefferson if the liberal ideas of the 
framers of the State could have been followed. 

Among the earliest recorded opinions on the subject of education 
in Georgia after the Revolution was the message of Governor 
Lyman Hall in 1783, when he urged the Legislature to enact such 
laws as would encourage the cultivation of the principles of re- 
ligion and virtue "among our citizens." To this end he recom- 
mended the endowment of seminaries of learning by sufficient 
tracts of land to support "such valuable institutions"; and this 
suggestion of land grants as endowments of educational institutions 
in the State proved to be the first step in the establishment of 
numerous academies and of the state university. Acting under 
the mandate of the constitution and in accord with the sug- 
gestion of Governor Hall, the Legislature in July, 1783, passed 
a law which chartered academies in three counties in the State 
and gave them landed endowments and empowered the governor 
to grant one thousand acres of land for the establishment of a 
free school in each of the other counties. During the next sev- 
eral years practically all the educational legislation enacted in 
the State showed interest in the academies or the university. 



134 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

Perhaps the most significant piece of educational legislation 
in Georgia during the early years of statehood was the act of 
chartering the university of the State. This was passed in 
February, 1784, and created a college or seminary of learning 
and endowed it with forty thousand acres of land, thus giving 
to Georgia the distinction of having chartered the first state 
university in the United States. In January, 1785, an act was 
passed for a "more full and complete establishment of a public 
seat of learning." 

Under the law enacted at this time the educational interests 
of the State began on a most promising plan, the purpose being 
to unite all literary concerns and provide for them in common. 
All phases of public education in the State were to become a 
part of the university, whose "senatus academicus" was required 
to act in an advisory capacity toward all public schools instituted 
or ''supported by funds or public moneys in this State." Such 
schools were regarded as parts of the university ; they were to 
be directed and regulated by it, and the president of the uni- 
versity was to visit them regularly and examine into their work. 
The plan was remarkable for its centralization, but it was im- 
practicable for the time and the conditions with which it had 
to deal. The county academies were few and scattered, and the 
spirit of the time was not one which looked with great favor on 
centralization of authority. The result was that the plan of 
making the university the central educational authority of the 
State failed except in name. 

From the establishment of the university until 181 7 there 
was but little public educational effort in the State except leg- 
islative encouragement of academies and of the university. The 
academies grew rapidly and, as was pointed out in the preceding 
chapter, received liberal legislative support. So-called elemen- 
tary schools, however, were not receiving any encouragement 
from the State, probably for the reason that more than ordi- 
nary attention was paid to schools which were thought to be of 
an academic grade. But sentiment in favor of public elementary 



Beginnings in the older states 135 

schools was slowly growing, and although the idea of charity en- 
tered early into all efforts of the State to provide elementary 
education and persisted throughout the ante-bellum period, yet 
a beginning was made of a plan which finally afforded consider- 
able instruction to a class which otherwise would have been 
entirely neglected educationally. 

With the passage of the act of July, 1783, the genesis of the 
so-called "poor school" system of Georgia was made, though 
the plan contemplated in that legislation did not become suffi- 
ciently formulated to be put into operation until more than thirty 
years later. A wholesome educational sentiment was in the mak- 
ing, however, during that time. In his message to the Legislature 
in November, 1816, Governor D. B. Mitchell said: 

What a weight of obligation does not our present happy and enviable 
situation impose upon us, to cherish, support and maintain, our invalu- 
able constitution in its present shape and form. Let us jealously en- 
deavor to discharge this obligation by all the means in our power. It 
has been often said, and 1 think truly, that knowledge is one of the 
surest means by which Hberty is either to be obtained or preserved ; 
and that knowledge which is improved, enlarged and refined, by a 
liberal education, is undoubtedly the best. If we turn to the historic 
page we shall find, that all those nations which encouraged and 
patronized learned men, and institutions for the education of their 
youth, were the most free, and if for a time they fell under oppression, 
they seldom failed to embrace the most favorable opportunity to break 
the fetters, and re-establish their freedom. . . . 

Our State has in this respect done much, but she ought still to do 
much more. Thirty years' experience has proved that the legislative 
provision for the establishment and support of our county academieSj 
is altogether insufficient : but few of them have gone into operation, 
and those that have, it is well known have been greatly aided by indi- 
vidual patronage. The great increase of our territory and population, 
and the inadequacy of the fund heretofore appropriated for this pur- 
pose, seems to me to require further legislative provision. 

It is highly gratifying to witness the individual efforts now making 
in many parts of the State, for the establishment and support of private 
schools and academies ; and will the Legislature of Georgia refuse to 



136 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

encourage and promote such laudable exertion? Surely they will not 
. . . Enlighten the rising generation and their liberties will be secure — 
leave them in ignorance and they may be made slaves. 



Largely as a result of this message and a growing sentiment in 
favor of providing educational facilities, there was enacted in 
December, 181 7, an act which gave substantial impetus to the 
free-school idea. Under authority of this legislation the sum of 
$250,000 was appropriated by the Legislature to be set apart 
for the " future establishment and support of free schools through- 
out the State," and the governor was empowered to invest that 
sum in bank stock or other profitable stock. The following year 
certain lots in each surveyor's district in the counties of Appling, 
Irwin, Early, Walton, Gwinnett, Hall, and Habersham were 
reserved for the education of poor children. This remained 
the principal educational legislation in the State until Decem- 
ber, 182 1, when another act was passed dealing with free 
schools. This law, "for the permanent endowment of county 
academies," set apart the sum of $500,000 to be equally divided, 
one half for the support of free schools and the other half for 
the "permanent endowment" of county academies. This legisla- 
tion marks the origin of the harmful distinction made between 
the academy fund and the "poor school" fund which persisted 
for so many years in Georgia. The greatest immediate influence 
of the law was doubtless the stimulation of academies. During the 
next decade more than one hundred academies were chartered — 
three times as many as had been chartered during the preceding 
forty years. During the decade from 1830 to 1840 this number 
more than doubled. 

The next significant legislation dealing with public elementary 
instruction was passed in 1822, By act of December 23 of that 
year the justices of the inferior courts were to appoint one or 
more "fit and proper persons" in their respective counties to 
superintend the education of the poor children. These officers 
were required to enumerate and make a list of all poor children 



BEGINNINGS IN THE OLDER STATES 137 

in their counties and return their names to the county justices, 
who were to examine and certify the same and deliver the list to 
the governor. The justices were not allowed to return the name 
of any child whose parent or estate paid a "tax exceeding fifty 
cents" above the poll tax. The governor, under the act, was to 
distribute the sum of $12,000 of the bank dividends and other 
proceeds of the "poor school" fund among the various counties in 
proportion to the number of the poor children returned by 
the justices, and the money was to be paid to "such persons as the 
inferior court may empower to receive the same." It was the 
duty of the persons so appointed to cause "any of the poor 
children so returned to go to school at such schools as may be 
convenient in their respective neighborhoods." Each teacher 
instructing such children was required to present his account to one 
of the justices of the county, who was required to have " the same 
paid where it shall appear just." However, no child was to be 
instructed at the expense of the fund who had already "been 
taught reading, writing, and the usual rules of arithmetic." More- 
over, no child under eight or above eighteen years of age could 
participate in the benefit of the fund, and none could be sent 
to school at public expense more than three years. The census 
required by the law called for the enumeration of children " as well 
poor as rich, and female as well as male" between the ages of 
eight and eighteen years. The justices were required to make a 
report to the "senatus academicus" of the university "of their 
actings and doings," to accompany such report with such re- 
marks as they thought proper to make concerning the utility of 
the plan, and to suggest any other plan which they considered 
"likely to produce the benefits intended." 

This legislation became the real basis of elementary educa- 
tional practices in Georgia before i860. In none of the laws 
described, however, is there any evidence that the establishment 
of special schools was contemplated for the instruction of poor 
children, and it does not appear that any were established. 
Teachers in the academies or in "inferior or elementary" schools 



138 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

already in operation who were willing to comply with the few 
simple formalities of the law and to undertake the work received 
for instruction those children of the community who, in the 
opinion of the justices, came within the meaning of the law. 
Such children were entered with such teachers, who received their 
share of the fund apportioned for the purpose of educating the 
poor children of the State. In December, 1823, the act of the 
previous year was altered, and provision was made for the an- 
nual distribution of $20,000 from the income of the poor- 
school fund among the counties of the State in proportion to their 
free white population, for the purpose of educating indigent 
youth. 

The plan thus provided for public elementary education con- 
tinued until the late thirties. Like the plan in Virginia and in 
South Carolina it was inherently defective, and throughout its 
long life its principle was attacked as unwholesome in that it 
served to accentuate invidious distinctions in the public mind. 
However, its inauguration marked a step, however feeble, in the 
direction of one correct principle of public education — that of 
state support. Here the State appeared partially committed to 
that principle, although its application was not to all the commu- 
nity, but rather to the less prosperous part. Moreover, while it was 
defective in principle and of unwholesome influence in its opera- 
tion, the plan yet placed the crumbs of elementary instruction 
within reach of hundreds of poor children whose intellectual 
lives would otherwise have remained entirely unnourished. 

No further important legislation was enacted for public-school 
education in Georgia until 1837. In that year a thorough public- 
school system for all the youth of the State was set up, to be sup- 
ported by a combination of a large school fund and a permissive 
county tax, but the plan thus provided was shortly replaced by 
the original plan. Other more or less successful attempts were 
later made to improve the public educational conditions in the 
State, but the plan of 1822, in the main, continued until the 
Civil War. The actual operation of this plan before i860 as well 



BEGINNINGS IN THE OLDER STATES 139 

as the legislative attempts at improvement during the ante- 
bellum period will be treated in a later chapter. 

It was noted in the preceding chapter that the history of early 
educational effort in Tennessee was closely connected with the 
history of public lands in that State. It was also pointed out 
that North Carolina (from which State Tennessee was settled 
near the middle of the eighteenth century) ceded to the Federal 
Government in 1790 all the lands in the region now known as 
Tennessee, that Tennessee was organized as a territory in 1794 
and admitted to the Union as the sixteenth state in 1796, and 
that the Federal Government retained until 1806 the lands 
which had been ceded by North Carolina. In 1802 Ohio had 
been admitted to the Union and had received from Congress the 
sixteenth-section school-land grant, but similar provision was 
not made for Tennessee until 1806. In that year, however, some 
educational provision was made in the requirement that the 
State should, "in issuing grants and perfecting titles, locate 640 
acres to every six miles square in the territory hereby ceded 
where existing claims will allow the same, which shall be appro- 
priated for the use of schools for the instruction of children 
forever." 

There was an important difference, however, between the 
educational provision thus made for Tennessee and that made for 
Ohio by the land grants of Congress. The sixteenth-sections in 
Ohio had been definitely located by the admirable survey 
system of the Federal Government, but Tennessee was not di- 
vided into the six-miles-square townships, and it was difficult 
to locate the sections designed for school purposes. Moreover, 
there had been a steady stream of immigrants into the region for 
many years, and the settlers had acquired valid claims to a 
large part of the land which, by the act of Congress in 1806, 
was intended for school support. These pioneers naturally re- 
sisted all efforts which were made to take their lands for the 
purposes of that act, and considerable confusion resulted. As 
early as 1806, however, legislation was enacted by the State 



140 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

directing a survey and division of the newly acquired territory 
into tracts ''as near six miles square as the case will admit," and 
six hundred and forty acres of land ''fit for cultivation and im- 
provement" were to be located in each tract for the use of schools. 
With the passage of this act confusion began because, with the 
first efforts to comply with its provisions and the provisions of 
the act of Congress, the settlers began to resist, and difficulties 
growing out of the situation perplexed the Legislature many 
years. It should be kept in mind that the title to these lands 
in Tennessee was vested in the State and not in the township 
or district. 

The land office was opened in 1807, and for nearly two decades 
the school lands were leased by commissioners appointed by the 
county courts. But it soon became apparent that although the 
land provisions for schools seemed munificent they were, in fact, 
entirely inadequate for maintaining a system of schools which 
would furnish without cost to the people the benefits of educa- 
tion to the children of the State. Moreover, the lands had not 
been properly protected, and the Legislature rejected the gov- 
ernor's recommendation in 182 1 that steps be taken to acquire 
full information on the subject. Sentiment in favor of more 
adequate educational provisions was growing, however, and in 
September, 1823, Governor William Carroll said, addressing 
the Legislature: 

The subject of education has often been recommended, and its 
claims to the fostering care of the Legislature cannot be too strongly 
urged. Our colleges and academies have languished for the want of 
those funds so essential to their prospects and usefulness. A strong 
and very laudable desire seems generally to be manifested, that we 
should not be dependent upon the literary institutions of our sister 
States for the education of our sons. We have the means, and it is 
only necessary that they should be brought into action, and Tennessee 
will soon be as distinguished for her literary attainments as she has 
been for the defense of her rights. The durability of our government 
will much depend upon the information of its citizens, which cannot 
be attained by all, unless the means are brought within the reach of all. 



BEGINNINGS IN THE OLDER STATES 141 

Then talents will be brought from obscurity, and the son of the 
poorest man in the community may be quahfied for usefulness and 
the highest office in the State. The subject demands your peculiar 
attention, and its importance is its highest recommendation. 



It was in that year that the first step was taken toward the es- 
tablishment of a public-school system. Legislation was enacted by 
which offices were established for receiving entries for vacant lands 
north and east of the congressional reservation, the lands to be 
entered at the price of twelve and a half cents an acre, and the 
proceeds to be paid quarterly by the entry clerks to certain 
banks which were designated for the purpose. The funds arising 
from this source were to ^'remain and constitute a perpetual and 
exclusive fund for the establishment and promotion of common 
schools in each and every county in the State." By the same 
act taxes on these lands became a part of the public-school fund, 
to be kept separate and paid over to the proper bank or banks, 
whose agents were to make a semiannual distribution of these 
sources of school support among the school commissioners, who 
were provided for by the same act. There were to be five of 
these officers in each county, to be named by the county court. Up 
to this point the law had creditable features, but, hke early legis- 
lation in the States already discussed, it was defective in one 
very vital point: the county school officials were to appropriate 
the funds received under the provisions of the act "to the educa- 
tion of the poor, either by establishing poor schools in their differ- 
ent counties or by paying the tuition of poor children." Thus 
another lawmaking body, by the unnecessary use of an unfortu- 
nate adjective, at the outset limited the usefulness of what was 
obviously intended as the beginning of a creditable school system 
and, by recognizing class distinctions, discouraged the patronage 
of the schools by all classes. 

Although defective, this act of 1823 served a good purpose in 
that it helped somewhat to stimulate a better educational senti- 
ment. The people had been dissatisfied with the land provisions 



142 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

for education, and in 1824 the Legislature made complaint to 
Congress. The complaint was accompanied by a statement in 
a report which was made by James K. Polk, who was at that 
time one of Tennessee's congressmen. The statement showed 
that the schools of the State were entitled to 444,000 acres of 
lands, that only about 22,700 had been laid off, that all the 
good lands were occupied, and that the remaining lands were not 
very valuable. An appeal was made to Congress to make up the 
deficiency from the unoccupied territory of the congressional 
reservation, but no relief was given. The subject of public schools 
was receiving increased attention during these years, however, and 
there was promise of action which would promote the cause. In 
an address to the graduating class at Cumberland College in 
October, 1826, President Phillip Lindsley voiced a growing senti- 
ment in favor of public education when he said : 

Common schools, then, are needed in Tennessee. How shall they 
be established? Let the people decide. What character and form 
shall they assume? Let every county be divided into such a number 
of school districts or departments as will conveniently accommodate 
all the inhabitants. Erect comfortable and commodious schoolhouses. 
Attach to each schoolhouse a lot of ten acres of land, for the purpose 
of healthful exercise, gardening, farming, and the mechanical arts. 
For the body requires training as well as the mind. Besides, as mul- 
titudes must live by manual labor, they ought betimes to acquire 
habits of industry, economy, temperance, hardihood, muscular 
strength, skill, and dexterity. [President Lindsley was not unlikely 
interested in the manual-labor school. See Chapter IV.] Employ 
teachers to govern and instruct children in the best possible manner. 
Pay them according to their merit. Pay any sum necessary to com- 
mand the services of the best and most accomplished teachers. Par- 
simony in this particular is not only impolitic ; it is mean, it is absurd, 
it is ruinous. Better have no teachers, than to have incompetent, im- 
moral, lazy, passionate, or indiscreet ones, however cheaply they may 
be procured. Their influence will not be merely negative ; it will be 
positive and most powerful. I have often looked with horror upon 
the kind of common schools and teachers to which thousands of 
children, during several of their best years, are cruelly and wantonly 



BEGINNINGS IN THE OLDER STATES 143 

subjected in the older States. But it is or was the fashion, in many 
places, to hire a blockhead or vagabond, because he would teach a 
child for a dollar and twenty-five cents a quarter. Now if there is 
anything on earth for which a parent ought to feel disposed to pay 
liberally, it is for the faithful instruction of his children. Compared 
with this, every other interest vanishes like chaff before the wind — 
it is less than nothing. And yet, unless the world has suddenly grown 
much wiser, there is no service so grudgingly and pitifully rewarded. 
The consequence is what might have been expected. Every man of 
cleverness and ambition will turn his back with scorn upon the country 
school. He will become a lawyer, a physician, a merchant, a mechanic, 
a farmer, or a farmer's overseer, in preference. Until school-keeping 
be made an honorable and a lucrative profession, suitable teachers will 
never be forthcoming in this free country. 

In 1827 the Legislature passed an act for the purpose of con- 
solidating all school funds into one fund to encourage and sup- 
port public schools in Tennessee. Among the funds appropriated 
by this act for school purposes were the proceeds from land sales 
in the Hiawassee District, all lands previously appropriated in the 
State for the use of schools, all the unappropriated lands to which 
the State had at that time or should later acquire title, the 
rents and profits of all school lands accrued but unappropriated, 
the funds provided for in the act of 1823, the proceeds of intestate 
estates, and several other items. This act was the real legal basis 
of the State's permanent public-school fund, which will be treated 
in the following chapter. The act was defective in neglecting to 
make provisions for the application of the fund thus created, but 
an effort was made two years later to correct this defect. 

By 1830 the school fund was thought to be large enough for be- 
girming a school system, and legislation was enacted establishing 
the first public-school plan of the State. The law provided that 
the court of each county should at its first session in 1830, and 
every year thereafter, appoint one commissioner in each captain's 
company, and these commissioners were to meet at the regimental 
muster grounds and divide the "said regiment into school dis- 
tricts." In each district five trustees were to be elected to serve 



144 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

for one year or until their successors were elected. These local 
officers were to organize into a board and to choose from among 
themselves a chairman, a clerk, and a treasurer ; , and the chair- 
men so chosen were to meet at the courthouse at a specified time 
each year and select not less than five nor more than seven ''dis- 
creet and intelligent" citizens for county common-school commis- 
sioners. These commissioners were to meet twice a year and were 
to have charge of all school funds. All interest due the county 
from the school fund, the taxes on school lands sold, and all the 
other taxes, fines, or contributions directed by law to be paid to 
the county commissioners constituted a fund for annual distribu- 
tion among the school districts in proportion to the number of 
children in each between the ages of five and fifteen years. 

The district trustees were to provide a comfortable schoolhouse 
before the district could participate in the annual distribution of 
the fund. It was also the duty of each local trustee to "open 
and keep a subscription paper and solicit and receive donations 
which shall be appropriated to the school of the district." The 
local trustees were to employ teachers and to "judge of their 
qualifications, capacity, and character," and to report annually 
to the county school commissioners the teacher's salary, the school 
term, the enrollment, the subjects taught, "and the average price 
given for tuition each month per scholar." The trustees were also 
authorized to induce all children between the ages of five and 
fifteen years to be sent to school, "and no distinction shall be 
made between rich and poor, but said school shall be open and 
free to all." The trustees were to have "full power to guard the 
morals, manners, and habits of the scholars" and to expel any 
scholar when in their opinion "the good of the school requires it." 
Authority was also given the trustees of any district which was not 
able to continue a school for the entire year to arrange to keep it 
open at "the most leisure season of the year, and at such time 
as will be most convenient for the children of the neighborhood 
to go to school." The county school commissioners were required 
to visit the schools at least once a year and "examine into the 



BEGINNINGS IN THE OLDER STATES 145 

situation and condition of said schools, and the progress the 
scholars are making, and the branches taught." They were al- 
lowed also to appropriate twenty dollars a year from the school 
fund for purchasing schoolbooks and writing materials for the 
children of poor parents. 

In a measure the provisions of this law were more or less ad- 
vanced for the time. However, the act was defective in at least 
two points : in its failure to provide for stimulating local initiative 
in the matter of school support and in the provision that books 
should be furnished poor children. This element of charity en- 
gendered prejudice against schools supported at state expense — an 
attitude which persisted for decades and did not entirely disappear 
until many years after the Civil War. The system established 
in 1830 underwent many modifications and several improvements 
before i860, however, and by that date contained several features 
of an adequate public-school plan. The actual operation of the 
system from 1830 to i860 will be discussed in another chapter. 

North Carolina incorporated provisions for education in the 
original constitution of that State in 1776. The university was 
established in 1789 and organized six years later, but with this 
exception no legislation was enacted in behalf of public education 
until 1825, when the literary fund was created. With the ex- 
ception of this act it was nearly fifty years from the organization 
of the university to the passage of the first public-school law in 
1839. North Carolina, therefore, was the last of the older South- 
ern States to enact a public-school law. 

There were many conditions which prevented an earlier obedi- 
ence to the educational mandate of the constitution. Leaders in 
the State believed in the civilizing influences of schools and col- 
leges, but the terms of the constitution itself were more or less 
uncertain and variously interpreted by those who really had an 
earnest interest in promoting the cause of public schools. To some 
the constitutional provision meant that the Legislature should 
establish public free schools and provide for their maintenance by 
state taxation, while others believed that it was intended to give 



146 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

authority for legislative aid to private schools and academies. 
This latter interpretation was so general that frequent petitions 
were presented to the Legislature for the aid of such schools, but 
they were invariably refused ; and in 1 803 a bill for establishing 
an academy in each district, to be maintained by the public, was 
also defeated. Another condition which hindered legislative ac- 
tion was the fear of taxation, inherited perhaps from colonial 
days. Taxation, it was argued, was designed in a republican 
form of government to defray its legitimate and necessary ex- 
penses, and the less the tax the more ideal the government. Such 
a theory naturally stifled the proper conception of education in 
a democracy. Moreover, the intrusion of the State into the 
parental obligation was considered by some as dangerous and 
agrarian. To others the element of charity read into a public- 
school system seemed humiliating — an attitude which cooled local 
pride and community patriotism. Besides, lack of communication 
between the eastern and western counties produced sectional 
jealousies which unhappily prevented the development of a com- 
mon educational interest. The entire absence of proper qualifi- 
cations and a resulting lack of professional spirit among the 
teachers of the State also delayed the beginnings of a movement 
for popular education. Compared with many other pursuits, 
teaching was popularly considered contemptible. 

Agitation of a movement for public schools, however, began 
early after the opening of the national period. From 1802 to the 
passage of the first school law the various governors and other 
leaders urged the Legislature to obey the constitutional require- 
ment and to provide educational facilities for the masses of the 
people. In 1804 Governor James Turner advocated public tax- 
ation for school support and urged the introduction of a school 
system which would "extend itself to every corner of the State." 
In 1 81 5 Governor Miller, like his predecessors, urged the estab- 
lishment of a school system and said that it was "under the 
hand of legislative patronage alone that the temple of science 
can be thrown open to all." Beyond referring the executive 



BEGINNINGS IN THE OLDER STATES 147 

recommendation to a joint committee of the body, however, which 
was the first committee on the subject of education appointed in 
the Legislature of the State, no action was taken. The following 
year the same executive called attention to the subject again and 
recommended the establishment of a permanent school fund: 
"The example set in a neighboring State, in establishing funds for 
the advancement of literature and internal improvements, seems 
well worthy of imitation."^ 

That part of the governor's message was referred to a commit- 
tee, of which Archibald D. Murphey was named chairman, and the 
result of the committee's work was a report, written by Murphey, 
in which the democratic theory of education was thoroughly 
elaborated. The report pointed out that the education of the 
youth of the State was then left to chance and that thousands 
of children were growing up in ignorance. It urged that the 
strength of the State resided in its people, who should be 
educated at public expense without distinction of class, and 
stated that the Legislature was amply able to appropriate half a 
million dollars for maintaining a general system of schools. In 
conclusion Murphey recommended the appointment of a legislative 
committee of three to digest a system of education based on the 
general principles of the report and to report it to the next session 
of the Legislature. Murphey was again appointed chairman of the 
committee, and in November, 181 7, presented to the Legislature 
the report which gave him the name of the "father of the public 
schools of North Carolina." 

The report was significant in that it marked the dawn of a new 
educational era for North Carolina and became the basis of the 
school system which was inaugurated in 1839. It was presented 
after a careful study of the best systems of education in this 
country and in Europe and embodied the best of the practicable 
features revealed by the investigation. The proposed system 
was to include a literary fund ; a state board of education to man- 
age the fund and to have supervision over the schools ; provision 

1 Virginia had established a literary fund in 1810. 



/ 



148 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

for a state university, academies, and primary schools, their 
organization and administration ; and provision for the education 
of the poor and for an asylum for the deaf and dumb. The 
plan considered primary schools of first importance. 

Although somewhat advanced for the time the report did not 
fully accept the democratic theory of education. Its recom- 
mendation of provisions for the education of the poor reflects 
an attitude which was prevalent even among the most public- 
spirited men of the period: 

One of the strongest reasons which we can have for establishing a 
general plan of public instruction, is the condition of the poor chil- 
dren of our country. Such has always been and probably always will 
be the allotment of human life, that the poor will form a large por- 
tion of every community ; and it is the duty of those who manage the 
affairs of a State to extend relief to this unfortunate part of our 
species in every way in their power. 

The proposed plan met the hearty support of the Legislature, 
which prepared and presented a bill based on the recommenda- 
tions. But the impracticable feature of attempting to maintain 
as well as to educate the children of the poor, and the burdens 
of the war debt of 1812, were among the factors combining to 
defeat the scheme, which embraced the profoundest and most 
comprehensive educational wisdom ever presented for the con- 
sideration of a North Carolina Legislature. The friends of the 
proposed plan were unwilling to eliminate the impracticable fea- 
ture, and legislative enactment of the bill proved an impossibility. 

Although this attempt to establish schools failed, agitation of 
the subject did not cease. Governor Branch, in his message to 
the Legislature in 181 8, referred especially to the "solemn in- 
junction" of the constitution and reminded that body that "by 
this chart we are bound, as the servants of the people under the 
solemnities of an oath, to steer the vessel of State." At that 
session of the Legislature efforts were again made to establish 
a school system in the State. The proposed law empowered the 
county courts to appoint "five persons of competent skill and 



BEGINNINGS IN THE OLDER STATES 149 

ability" to have direction of school affairs in the various counties. 
Three local trustees, to be appointed by these county directors, 
were to employ the teacher and ''designate such poor children 
in their neighborhood as they shall think ought to be taught free 
of any charge." These poor children were also to receive free 
books and stationery. The expenses of the schools were to be 
borne by a property tax of ten cents on the hundred dollars' 
valuation and a capitation tax of fifty cents, to be levied in each 
county. Each teacher was to be paid an annual salary of one 
hundred dollars from the county funds and also receive two 
thirds of the money collected from tuition. The bill passed its 
first reading in both Houses and passed its second reading in the 
Senate by a large vote, but on its second reading in the House it 
was postponed indefinitely. 

In 1819 and in 1822 the matter of education was again before 
the Legislature. In the latter year Governor Gabriel Holmes 
urged legislative obedience to the injunction of the constitution 
to establish schools and said: ''I fear, gentlemen, if those 
venerable fathers were to rise from their tombs, they would 
reproach us with supineness and neglect, and would not listen to 
our plea of want of power. We shall never know what power we 
have until we exert it." In 1824 an attempt to create a perma- 
nent fund for school purposes failed by vote in the lower branch 
of the Legislature. The proposed plan looked principally to 
making provision for the education of the poor children of the 
State. The following year further effort was made, and interest 
in a plan for schools was widespread. At that time Governor 
Burton declared that education was more important than internal 
improvements, a subject which had largely absorbed legislative 
consideration for nearly a decade. A plan for a general system 
of schools, in most respects similar to previous plans suggested, 
was reported. Its most interesting feature, however, was the 
provision for taxation for school support, and this meant im- 
mediate death to the plan, A few days later an attempt was made 
to create a school fund by means of a lottery, but this likewise met 



150 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

defeat. Finally, a bill, which was drawn by Bartlett Yancey, a 
former student of law under Murphey, was presented to the Senate 
and provided for establishing a permanent public endowment for 
school support. It passed regularly through the usual channels 
of legislation and became law without a division in either House 
of the Legislature. 

The adoption of a constitutional provision for schools was the 
iirst victory for education in North Carolina. A more signal 
victory was won, however, with the enactment of legislation cre- 
ating a school fund, and with it the initial step was taken by 
the Legislature in obedience to the constitutional mandate. 
Hostility to increased taxation had been intense, and the passage 
of a measure calling for local or county taxation for school sup- 
port would have been impossible. If schools were to be created, 
provision for their maintenance had to be sought in other ways 
than by taxation, and the creation of a permanent public fund 
from the income of which schools were to receive aid seemed 
the only satisfactory plan. This method of school support had 
already been adopted in several other States. 

No legislation of special educational importance was enacted 
during the next ten years, though the subject of schools continued 
to be agitated, and repeated efforts were made to secure educa- 
tional improvement. During these years of fruitless effort the 
population of the State was increasing, with the result that the 
children of the masses were growing up in ignorance. There 
seemed to be no voice to speak out and to point the way to correct 
educational action. Sentiment for public education was also de- 
veloping and expressing itself. Surprise was frequently expressed 
in the press of the State and elsewhere 'Hhat a subject so inter- 
esting to every philanthropist, so superlatively important in a 
political point of view, and so loudly and imperiously demanded 
by existing circumstances in our State, should have continued so 
long without attracting the special attention and engaging the 
active exertions of our Legislature. . . . The dullness and in- 
capacity which is permitted to enter our legislative hall, and 



BEGINNINGS IN THE OLDER STATES 151 

disgraces us even in the national representation . . . evinces most 
unequivocally the mental debasement of a large portion of our 
population." 

The education of the masses was believed to be the only correct 
basis of agricultural and commercial prosperity and the surest 
guaranty of liberty. Dr. Joseph Caldwell, president of the state 
university, said, in an address before a convention in Raleigh in 
1829, that the State was three centuries behind in education, the 
chief cause of which he declared to be the "fatal delusion" that 
"taxation is contrary to the genius of a republican government." 
The following year Governor Owen attacked the State's so-called 
policy of economy as fit only to keep "the poor in ignorance and 
the State in poverty." And in 1833 Governor Swain spoke of the 
"apathy which has pervaded the legislation of half a century."^ 

There were a few evidences of a growing sentiment in favor 
of education, however, in the thirties. One appeared in a move- 
ment to organize the teachers of the State through the formation in 
1832 of "The North Carolina Institute of Education." Two an- 
nual sessions of this organization were held in the interest of 
schools. Public interest during this time was also stimulated by 
the well-known letters on popular education addressed to the 
people of the State by President Caldwell of the state university. 
These letters were eleven in number and were the result of the 
work of a standing legislative committee appointed several years 
before for the purpose of studying conditions in the State with a 
view to improvement. The committee never met, but the letters 
of Caldwell thoroughly embodied that educator's views on the 
subject of public education and created a wholesome interest in 
the cause. They pointed out the difficulties in the way of educa- 
tional advancement, suggested plans for overcoming the State's 
educational backwardness, discussed the usual methods of school 
support, rerriarked freely on educational practices in the State, 
discussed Ihe public-school systems of other States, and pointed 
out those features which would be practicable for conditions in 

^Knight, Public School Education in North Carolina, chap. vii. 



152 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

North Carolina. Provision for training teachers was regarded 
as a necessary feature of any system which the State should 
adopt, and a thorough plan for a school in which such provision 
could be made was considered in detail. The demand for schools 
would then increase and "the walls that shut in our people from 
the light of day" would be broken down.^ 

Certain social and economic conditions during these years had 
produced a general feeling of uncertainty and depression, with the 
result that progressive policies of internal improvements and edu- 
cation were difficult to formulate and execute. These conditions 
had variously revealed themselves. In 1790 the State ranked 
third in population among the states of the Union, ten years 
later it had declined to fourth place, and by 1830 to fifth. 
Moreover, the value of lands was on the decrease. In 181 5 land 
values were greater than in 1833, although a million acres had 
been entered by the latter date. Slaves were increasing faster than 
the white population; emigration continued a persistent and 
alarming problem, thousands of people leaving the State every 
year in search of better opportunities; and the want of better 
commercial interests closed the avenue of trade to a people almost 
entirely agricultural, proving a most serious impediment to social 
progress. The report of the committee on internal improvements 
in 1833 recited many of these conditions and discussed the in- 
auguration of a policy by which the evils which resulted from 
the previous policy of the State could be cured. 

During the next few years the subject of schools continued 
to be agitated. The literary ic^d was not considered large 
enough to support an adequate school plan for the State. Several 
suggestions were made through committee reports and legislative 
resolutions, but proposed legislation was defeated. At the session 
of the Legislature in 1836-1837 a memorial was presented from 

1 These letters appeared in the Raleigh Register in 1830 and are given 
in full in Coon's "Public Education in North Carolina, 1 790-1 840. A Docu- 
mentary History." Copious extracts from them may also be fotmd in the 
author's "Public School Education in North Carolina," chap. vii. 



BEGINNINGS IN THE OLDER STATES 153 

citizens of Fayetteville, who "witnessed with pain and mortifica- 
tion the depressed condition which each section of our State 
presents, when compared with that of her sisters of our happy 
Union"; and Governor Dudley, in his inaugural address, said: 

As a State, we stand fifth in population, first in climate, equal in 
soil, minerals, and ores, with superior advantages for manufacturing 
and with a hardy, industrious, and economical people. Yet with such 
unequaled natural facilities, we are actually least in the scale of rela- 
tive wealth and enterprise, and our condition daily becoming worse — 
lands depressed in price, fallow and deserted — manufacturing ad- 
vantages unimproved — our stores of mineral wealth undisturbed, 
and our colleges and schools languishing from neglect. . . . 

It was said that there were then in the State fully one hundred 
and twenty thousand children between the ages of five and fifteen 
who were "destitute of a common-school education. In some parts 
of the State many large families are found not one of whom, 
parents or children, can read their alphabet ; and in others whole 
neighborhoods of forty or fifty families exist, among whom but 
few individuals can read their Bible." From press and pulpit the 
need for schools and increased facilities for education was being 
discussed, and the whole subject was becoming more and more 
absorbing in its interest. 

Several important educational steps were taken at this session 
of the Legislature. One of these was the plan adopted for dis- 
posing of the surplus revenue distributed by act of Congress in 
1836; another was the passage of a law which vested certain 
swamp lands in the literary board and appropriated the sum of 
$200,000 for their drainage and improvement; and still another, 
equal in importance to these, was the direction given to the lit- 
erary board to digest a plan for a State school system and to 
report the following year. The principal of the literary fund was 
thus gieatly increased, with a resulting expansion of its revenues. 
The share of North Carolina in the surplus revenue from the 
Federal Government amounted to $1,433,757.40, all of which was 



( 



154 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

eventually applied directly or indirectly to the cause of education. 
In this way the literary fund was increased to nearly two million 
dollars, and steps were at once begun for launching a system of 
public schools. 

In his message to the Legislature in 1838 Governor Dudley 
urged the establishment of a school system and the employment 
of a state superintendent. Several resolutions were passed in 
favor of the subject early in the session, and the literary board, 
in accordance with instructions of the preceding Legislature, sub- 
mitted a plan for a school system. The report of the board was 
extensive and detailed and suggested provisions for common 
schools "suited to the conditions and resources of the State." 
On this report the first public-school law of the State was ratified, 
January 8, 1839, and became the basis of a creditable ante-bellum 
educational system. 

The law provided for an election in every election precinct in 
the State to ascertain the voice of the people on the subject of 
schools and on raising by local taxation one half the amount to be 
given by the literary fund for school support. Boards of school 
superintendents, from five to ten in number, were to be elected by 
the county courts for those counties which voted for schools. Each 
board so elected was to organize and to divide its county into 
school districts and to appoint local trustees for each district. The 
county court was required to levy a tax of twenty dollars for each 
district which voted for schools, in the same manner that other 
taxes were levied for county purposes. This amount was to be 
doubled by an appropriation from the income of the literary fund. 
The local district was required to erect a schoolhouse sufficient to 
accommodate fifty children and to levy the local tax before it 
could receive this appropriation. 

An educational campaign which revealed a widespread and 
wholesome sentiment in favor of schools was waged in the spring 
and the summer of 1839. The subject was discussed by pub- 
lic leaders and the friends of education, and the press of the 
State generally urged the school tax provided for in the law. The 



BEGINNINGS IN THE OLDER STATES I55 

election was held in August, and a majority of the counties 
adopted the plan, approving the principle of school support by a 
combination of local taxation and the income from the literary 
fund. The plan failed in seven counties, however, four in the west- 
ern and three in the eastern part of the State. But the long 
agitation for schools had passed, and the State was now ready 
to begin a noteworthy educational career.^ The operation of the 
system from 1840 to i860 will be treated in another chapter. 

From this brief and general study of early educational effort 
in the older Southern States two important questions at once 
suggest themselves : Why were these States only partially com- 
mitted to the principle of equality of general educational oppor- 
tunity and slow to make adequate school provision for the children 
of all the people? and Why were the early school laws in these 
States so permissive and vague and the school plans set up on 
them so defective? 

It should be kept in mind that the immediately important 
changes which appeared with the War for Independence were 
largely political, that many of these were at first theoretical only, 
and that corresponding social changes did not appear promptly. 
In many ways the people continued to live and to work as 
formerly. They continued to be absorbed in satisfying material 
needs. For many years following the war many of them lived 
under primitive frontier conditions. For a long time there was a 
lack of easy means of communication, the population continued 
sparse, and lack of the township government system such as pre- 
vailed in New England denied to the people wide, direct, and 
close participation in local affairs. The average man was not able 
to express his opinion or desire on local community needs and 
interests such as schools, as he is permitted to do today. And, 
then, as now, the successful promotion of public schools depended 
on a wholesome social consciousness, which has always depended 
for development of the right and the opportunity of the individual 
to express opinion and desire on social needs. Without these 
1 Knight, Public School Education in North Carolina, chap. viii. 



156 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

privileges a sound sense of the common welfare cannot be created 
and developed. Moreover, for several decades following the war 
the political leaders were responsible for new and increasing 
governmental affairs and were thus kept busy with duties and 
interests which were immediately pressing and seemed more im- 
portant than schools. 

The religious motive for schools as an individual necessity was 
slow to give place during the early years of national life to the 
political motive, which, in theory at least, had been given force 
by the declarations that men are created equal and endowed with 
"certain inalienable rights." The principle of equal political op- 
portunity among men was in time to be accompanied by the closely 
related principle of equal educational opportunity. But this com- 
panion principle was slow to appear in practice. Education, there- 
fore, was to be looked upon for some time not primarily as a public 
concern but as a private interest. There remained wide confi- 
dence in private schools among the more prosperous part of the 
people, and among the less prosperous part there was contempt for 
"free" education because it smacked of charity. It was to be 
many years, therefore, before the principle of educational oppor- 
tunity, equal and free to all, should gain wide and full acceptance. 
The practical application of Jefferson's theories on education was 
not to be gained rapidly or to meet with full recognition promptly. 
And at best it was only natural that in the South early school laws 
and the school plans set up by them were to be colored largely by 
an aristocratic conception which was out of harmony with the 
promising and hopeful principles of equality declared in 1776. 
In these conditions may be found the causes which delayed the 
rapid and wholesome growth of public-school education in the 
older Southern States. 

Hopeful beginnings had been made, however, in these States by 
the dawn of the so-called American educational renaissance in the 
thirties. Permanent public-school endowments were created in 
all of them except South Carolina, and in all some form of educa- 
tional legislation was enacted. Most of such legislation was 



BEGINNINGS IN THE OLDER STATES 157 

defective in principle, however, and provided for school systems 
which were defective in plan and organization. But generally 
throughout the South during the half century following inde- 
pendence there appeared genuine interest in schools as a public 
necessity. Hope was thus reflected for the average man and 
his children not only in political but in educational and social 
matters. Gradually new demands were made for provision to 
educate the common people, because a free government required 
free schools for its success. If liberty and security were to be 
preserved a general diffusion of knowledge was necessary. Public 
opinion needed to be enlightened, and this could be done only 
• through education afforded the masses of the people. 

Early efforts to these ends were naturally crude and im- 
perfect. In the main educational legislation contained the element 
of charity which persisted as a retarding influence in the South 
for many decades. Through it class distinctions were recog- 
nized, and a powerful prejudice was thus created against public 
schools. The right of local initiative was not generally estab- 
lished and, except in North Carolina, no provision was made for 
stimulating local enterprise and community patriotism by requir- 
ing some form of local taxation for school support. For a be- 
ginning had been made, feeble though it was ; and under the 
influence of the revival during the second quarter of the 
nineteenth century notable improvement in public education was 
to be made. This was to be promoted also by the influence 
of permanent public-school endowments, which will be treated 
in the following chapter. 

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION AND FURTHER STUDY 

1. Trace the growth of education as a concern of the government 
in your State. 

2. What educational influence appeared in your State as a result 
of the American Revolution? 

3. Why did the conception of education as a private or religious 
obligation persist after the organization of the national government ? 



158 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

Explain why a wholesome educational consciousness depended on the 
growth of a keen national consciousness. 

4. (a) Make a study of Jefferson's educational philosophy. 
(b) What were its strong points ? (c) In what way or ways were his 
school plans defective? (d) Explain the fact that although Jefferson 
conceived education as an obhgation and proper function of the gov- 
ernment, he adhered to the principle of local control rather tharl to 
that of control by the State, (e) What lessons have his theories of 
educational control for those interested in public education today? 

5. What arguments for public education were made by the political 
leaders during the early years of the national period ? Compare those 
arguments with the arguments advanced today for an extension of 
public educational effort. 

6. Make a study of the constitutional and legal provisions for 
education in your State. Trace the changing conception of education 
as shown by the messages of the governors and expressions of private 
individuals and of the press. 

7. Why were the Southern States slow to make adequate provision 
for the public education of all the people ? Point out the educational 
influence of economic, social, and political conditions of the South 
during the first forty years of national life. 

8. What effect did the tendency toward religious freedom have on 
public education in the early national period? Explain the larger 
interest in secondary schools and colleges than in elementary-school 
systems in the South during the first three or four decades following 
independence. 

9. Make a study of the various conditions which affected public 
education during the early years of our national life and contrast them 
with conditions today. 

10. Explain how the element of charity became attached to the 
early educational efforts of the various Southern States. To what 
extent has your State fully accepted in practice the principle of equality 
of educational opportunity for all the people? 

11. Make a study of any educational leaders in your State prior to 
1835 and account for their positions on the subject of public-school 
support. How much were their views influenced by local political mat- 
ters ? Explain the sectional jealousies that grew up in most of the 
older States. 



BEGINNINGS IN THE OLDER STATES 159 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Acts of the Legislature of the various States. Adams, Thomas Jefferson 
and the University of Virginia. Washington, 1888. Barnard, The American 
Journal of Education, 30 vols. Hartford, 1855-1881. Boone, Education in 
the United States. New York, 1893. Calvin, Popular Education in Georgia. 
Augusta, 1870. Carlton, Economic Influences upon Educational Progress 
in the United States. Madison, Wisconsin, 1908. Circulars of information, 
United States Bureau of Education : Blackmar, History of Federal and 
State Aid to Higher Education in the United States (Washington, 1890) ; 
Jones, Education in Georgia (Washington, 1889) ; Meriwether, History of 
Higher Education in South Carolina (Washington, 1899) ; Merriam, 
Higher Education in Tennessee (Washington, 1893) ; Smith, The His- 
tory of Education in North Carolina (Washington, 1888). Coon, Public 
Education in North Carolina, 1790-1840. A Documentary History, 2 vols. 
Raleigh, 1908. Dexter, History of Education in the United States. New 
York, 1904. Eckenrode, The Separation of the Church and State in Vir- 
ginia. Richmond, 1910. G.'Vrrett, "Education in the South," in Proceed- 
ings of the Department of Superintendence of the N. E. A. Washington, 
1S89. Heatwole, a History of Education in Virginia. New York, 1916. 
Journals of the Legislature of the various States. Knight, Public School 
Education in North Carolina. Boston, 1916. Lewis, Report on Public 
Education in Georgia. Milledgeville, i860. Maddox, The Free School Idea 
in Virginia before the Civil War. New York, 1918. Mills, Statistics of 
South Carolina. Charleston, 1826. Phelan, History of Tennessee. Boston, 
1889. PooRE, The Federal and State Constitutions, 2 vols. Washington, 
1877. Public Documents of the various States. Sherwood, A Gazetteer of 
the State of Georgia. Washington, 1837. Weeks, Calvin Henderson Wiley 
and the Organization of the Common Schools of North Carolina. Wash- 
ington, 1898. Weeks, Public School Education in Tennessee (examined in 
manuscript). White, Historical Sketches of Georgia. New York, 1854. 
Whitney, The Land Laws of Tennessee. Chattanooga, 1891. Whitaker, 
"The Pubhc School System of Tennessee, 1834-1860," in Tennessee His- 
torical Magazine, Vol. II, No. i. 



CHAPTER VI 

PERMANENT PUBLIC-SCHOOL FUNDS 

Outline of the chapter, i. In spite of indifference and open hos- 
tility the free-school idea has grown until it is today generally accepted 
as sound. 

2. Changes in public sentiment and the growth of correct principles 
of public educational endeavor were stimulated in a measure by the 
creation of permanent public-school endowments. 

3. Although such endowments were important stimuH to educa- 
tional development, considerable carelessness and mismanagement 
marked their early operation. 

4. Tennessee was the first of the Southern States to create a 
permanent school fund, and from it annual appropriations were made 
for free-school support. 

5. Virginia was the second Southern State to estabhsh such a fund. 
It assisted in supporting schools for poor children throughout the 
ante-bellum period. 

6. South Carohna estabUshed no permanent fund before the Civil 
War. 

7. Georgia was the third Southern State to establish a permanent 
school endowment. It was used almost exclusively to aid the education 
of indigent children. 

8. Similar funds were set up in Mississippi in 1821 and in North 
Carolina in 1825. 

9. The distribution of the surplus revenue in 1837 stimulated pubhc 
education by increasing permanent school endowments. 

10. Permanent school funds were likewise estabhshed in Alabama, 
in Arkansas, in Texas, in Florida, and in Louisiana, and contributed 
largely to ante-bellum school support in those States. 

11. Losses were incurred by the school funds in most of the South- 
ern States before the Civil War. That struggle and the devastating 
period of reconstruction which followed also caused such funds to 
lose heavily. Since 1875 most of the Southern States have reestab- 

160 



PERMANENT PUBLIC-SCHOOL FUNDS 1613 

lished the funds of the ante-bellum period. Those funds are now 
more carefully managed and are serving to promote public education 
in a variety of ways. 

The public-school idea is today so universally accepted that it 
is difficult to believe that it has developed through opposition 
and struggle or that any other educational theory ever found 
widespread support in so-called democratic communities. But 
wholesome sentiment on the subject of public education has under- 
gone remarkable changes during the past century. Early in the 
nineteenth century the attitude of the public was indifferent and 
often hostile to the principle of public schools for all the people. 
At that time schools and the means of education at state expense 
were rare, and taxation for educational purposes was everywhere 
difficult to levy. Efficient state supervision and control, now rap- 
idly reaching a desirable form in the Southern States, was then 
practically unknown ; laws which were intended to encourage free 
schools were permissive and difficult to enforce ; the income from 
endowments created to assist in supporting free schools was 
frequently used for other than educational purposes, and not in- 
frequently the endowment itself was mismanaged and ex-ploited 
for private ends. Indifference, contempt, and open hostility were 
some of the obstacles confronting the early movements for public 
free-school systems. 

In spite of these obstacles, however, the free-school idea has 
gradually developed, and two important educational principles 
which are present in every sound and adequate public-school 
system have slowly but steadily grown. The first of these is the 
democratic principle that education is the function of the State 
rather than a family or a parental obligation and that the re- 
sponsibility of providing the means of education rests primarily 
with the State. The other principle is that the State has the 
right and the power to raise by taxation on the property of its 
members sufficient funds for adequate school support. Both of 
these principles are now generally accepted in all the Southern 
States, though here as elsewhere they have won acceptance in the 



1 62 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

face of such bitter opposition and cold indifference that their 
period of intense struggle is now not only difficult to recount but 
even more difficult, perhaps, to realize. 

This change in sentiment and the growth of these important 
educational principles were in a measure produced by the estab- 
lishment of permanent public-school endowments, popularly 
known as "literary" or "school" funds, the income from which 
was designed for public-school support. This form of public edu- 
cational support assisted in fostering and encouraging the growth 
of the present conception of education as a public concern and 
duty, and in nearly every State in the Union the public-school 
system was begun and set in motion by this method of financial 
support. Moreover, no feature of the public-school systems of 
the United States has rendered greater or more lasting service than 
permanent public-school endowments in destroying opposition to 
taxation for school purposes, in developing a wholesome educa- 
tional sentiment, and in stimulating local initiative and com- 
munity enterprise. Historically, therefore, the origin, development, 
and influence of public-school funds have a place in any account 
of educational growth in this country. 

Several purposes or incentives led to the establishment of 
permanent endowments for public schools. Notwithstanding the 
conditions which early opposed free schools, public sentiment 
was never unanimous against them. In most communities there 
were always a few public-spirited citizens who looked with favor 
on the public-school idea and believed that the encouragement 
of public education was both a necessity and a rare opportunity 
for promoting an intelligent and happy citizenship. Such leaders 
regarded it a duty to make provision for public schools; but 
the discharge of such a duty called for funds, and there was 
almost everywhere a dominating sentiment against taxation 
for anything except the necessary expenses of government. 
Schools were not yet properly considered a state obligation, 
and permanent endowments showed promise of furnishing greatly 
needed assistance. This seems to be the oldest aim or incentive 



PERMANENT PUBLIC-SCHOOL FUNDS 163 

for establishing a permanent public-school fund and is illustrated 
by the act of 1795, which established such an endowment in Con- 
necticut. But the result was unexpected and unwholesome : the 
fund failed to make the schools free ; the increase in its income 
gradually checked the tendency to raise local school taxes ; 
and from 182 1 to 1854 practically the only sources of school 
support in that State were the income from the school fund, 
gifts, and rate bills, which were not abolished until 1868. 

Other States learned by Connecticut's costly lesson. It was 
clearly demonstrated that an endowment should not entirely 
relieve a community from local school burdens, but should stimu- 
late and encourage local effort for school support. Any other 
principle would not only be a moral injury to the community and 
to the cause for which the fund was provided but would mean 
death to the cause of schools if the people were entirely relieved 
of all responsibility of assisting in their support. Therefore an- 
other aim in establishing school funds was to encourage local 
taxation. The earliest example of this principle is found in the 
case of New York, where it was never contemplated that the fund, 
established in 1805, should yield sufficient revenue entirely to 
support the schools. The principle here adopted was that of local 
taxation, and before a community could participate in a distri- 
bution of the revenue of the fund an amount equal to its share 
had to be raised by local levy. This principle has been most 
generally accepted as the soundest and most stimulating to the 
cause of adequate school support and, with certain modifications, 
soon came to be widely adopted in the United States. North 
Carolina seems to have been the first of the Southern States to 
adopt this principle in the distribution of income from its 
ante-bellum educational endowment. 

In spite of their importance as stimuli to educational growth, 
the record of the amazing carelessness and gross indifference 
with which public-school endowments have been managed is one 
of the most lamentable and melancholy chapters in American 
educational history. This record was practically universal in the 



1 64 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

pioneer days before education had won its proper place in public 
interest. Educational funds were then rarely guarded with the 
jealous care which their importance and sanctity demanded. The 
careless manner in which they were handled, moreover, showed 
the indifference which confronted the early movement for public 
schools. 

Few if any of the States entirely escaped from the evils of mis- 
management and the exploitation of public-school funds. The 
tendency toward careless management appeared early and con- 
tinued for many years, more rigid control by additional legisla- 
tion proving but little insurance against loss. Among the recorded 
causes of loss may be seen almost every species of violation of 
public trust. In some cases the school funds were grossly and 
shamefully diverted from their original purposes ; in other cases 
their management was indifferently intrusted to incompetent of- 
ficials, and the result was unwise investments ; in still other 
cases loans were insufficiently secured and interest was often 
defaulted ; and dishonest management and embezzlement by 
officers intrusted with the care of school funds caused other losses. 
Happily, however, there are but few gross examples of this 
form of loss. The most flagrant case is perhaps found in Ten- 
nessee, where Robert H. McEwen, the first superintendent of 
public schools in that State, succeeded in the late thirties in 
using a large part of the school fund for private purposes. Fail- 
ures of banks in which school funds were invested, the use of the 
school funds for meeting the current expenses of the state govern- 
ment, and the repudiation by the State of debts due the school 
funds were other forms of wrongs committed against public 
education. 

Tennessee was the first of the Southern States and the fourth 
of all the States to make provision for establishing a permanent 
fund for aiding public education. By act of 1806 it was ordered 
that the new territory, acquired by act of Congress in the same 
year, should be surveyed and laid out into tracts six miles square 
and that six hundred and forty acres of land "fit for cultivation 



PERMANENT PUBLIC-SCHOOL FUNDS 165 

and improvement" were to be "appropriated for the use of sciiools 
for the instruction of children forever." This legislation conformed 
to the requirement of the act of Congress which ceded certain 
public lands to Tennessee. A land office was soon opened, and 
the school lands were leased by commissioners appointed by the 
county courts ; but it soon became apparent that these legislative 
provisions were not adequate to maintain a school system without 
cost to the people. 

Nothing further was done to promote the cause of school 
support, however, until 1823, when offices were created to receive 
entries for vacant lands north and east of the congressional 
reservation line. These lands were to be entered at a certain price, 
and the funds thus arising were, together with state taxes on these 
lands, to be set aside as a "perpetual and exclusive fund for the 
establishment and promotion of common schools in each and every 
community in the State." The same act provided for county 
school commissioners, to be appointed by the county courts, who 
constituted the principal administrative officials of the system. 
These officers were to receive the semiannual distribution of the 
means of school support thus provided and were to appropriate 
the funds 'Uo the education of the poor, either by establishing 
poor schools in their different counties or by paying the tuition 
of poor children." These acts of 1806 and 1823 were followed in 
1827 by legislation which consolidated all school funds into one 
fund to be used for ''the encouragement and support of common 
schools forever." 

In the early thirties further legislation was enacted in an 
effort to increase the fund, but no other very important steps were 
taken. In 1835 Tennessee adopted its first constitutional pro- 
vision for schools, which provided that the "common school fund" 
and all other property which had been set aside for public-school 
support should remain a "perpetual fund." The principal could 
not be diminished by legislative appropriation, and the interest 
was to be inviolably appropriated to the support and encourage- 
ment of common schools in the State and for the equal benefit of 



1 66 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

all the people. The constitution also provided that no law should 
ever be passed authorizing a diversion of the fund or any part of 
it to any other purpose or use than that of the support and 
encouragement of common schools. Further requirement was 
made that the Legislature should appoint a board of school com- 
missioners to have general control of the fund, and by an act 
of February, 1836, provision was made for these officers. Pro- 
vision was also made for a state superintendent of public instruc- 
tion, who was to be chairman of the board, the other members 
of which were the treasurer of the State and the comptroller of 
the treasury. The board was empowered to appoint county agents 
throughout the State to have control of renewing securities and 
receiving funds due the board. As rapidly as the common- 
school fund increased it was to be invested in the Planters' Bank 
at Memphis. One of the superintendent's most important duties 
was to act as financial agent of the fund. 

In 1836 the Legislature took steps to provide for accepting the 
State's share of the surplus revenue of the Federal Government, 
which amounted to $1,433,757.40, and at the next session of that 
body a policy was adopted for disposing of both the federal 
fund and the permanent public-school fund. The plan agreed 
upon was the result of prolonged consideration given to the subject 
of schools and school funds, which began at the early part of the 
session and continued until the passage, in January, 1838, of an 
important educational act. This act created the Bank of Ten- 
nessee, which was the third bank in the State to bear that name, 
and capitalized it at $5,000,000. The capital was to consist of the 
permanent school fund, the share of the surplus revenue to which 
the State was entitled, and any unexpended interest thereon, the 
proceeds of the sale of certain lands, and loans sufficient to bring 
the total amount up to $5,000,000. The same act provided that 
$100,000 from the dividends of the bank should be paid annually 
to the board of school commissioners for common-school support 
and that $18,000, from the same source, should be paid annually 
for the support of academies. By later legislation, however, this 



PERMANENT PUBLIC-SCHOOL FUNDS 167 

source of school support was to be turned into the state treasury, 
to be kept as a separate fund but to receive the same protection 
as other funds of the commonwealth. 

It was the Legislature of 183 7-1 838 which became suspicious 
of the superintendent's management of the school fund and ordered 
him to report certain facts, "setting forth clearly the amount re- 
ceived by him, ... by whom paid, and from what sources 
received." McEwen's business methods between 1836 and 1838 
had aroused sufficient suspicion to call for legislative investigation, 
and a committee was appointed for that purpose. The result was 
a majority report that, by mismanagement and a variety of ques- 
tionable schemes, the superintendent had succeeded in robbing the 
school of more than $121,000. Suit was later instituted against 
him and his securities, and as a result of the litigation the matter 
was finally compromised by a legislative committee, the defendants 
paying less than $10,000 in full settlement of all claims.^ 

The policy adopted in 1838 continued as the method of man- 
aging the fund until the war. The annual appropriation from the 
treasury consisted of the interest on the fund and was distributed 
among the counties of the State on the basis of their scholastic 
population. This revenue furnished to each child of school age 
from forty to fifty cents a year, which constituted practically all 
the funds for public-school support until 1854, when Tennessee 
made its first provision for taxation for schools. This provision 
practically doubled the available funds for public education. The 
chief defect of the permanent fund was lack of centralization in 
its management. In spite of the weakness, however, the endow- 
ment rendered substantial aid to educational effort for many years. 
- Virginia was the second of the Southern States and the fifth 
of all the States to establish a permanent public-school fund. 
This action was taken in 18 10, when a law was passed directing 
that ''all escheats, confiscations, fines, penalties and forfeitures, 

1 Weeks, History of Public School Education in Tennessee, chap, iv ; 
Whitaker, "The Public School System of Tennessee, 1834-1860," in Ten- 
nessee Historical Magazine, Vol. 2, No. i. 



1 68 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

and all rights in personal property accruing to the commonwealth 
as derelict, and having no rightful proprietor" were appropriated 
to the encouragement of learning. The auditor was directed to 
begin an account to be known as the literary fund, and a year 
later an act was passed which made provision for the education of 
the poor by defining the purpose of the fund and planning for its 
management by a board composed of state officers. The same act 
stipulated that as soon as "a sufficient fund shall be provided for 
the purpose, it shall be the duty of the directors thereof to provide 
a school or schools for the education of the poor in each and every 
county of the commonwealth." The law entered a solemn protest 
against the application of the fund by any future Legislature to 
any other object than the education of the poor. 

The fund grew slowly at first. In 1816 it was increased by 
a large sum due Virginia for certain reclamations for military 
services in the War of 181 2, and shortly afterward the annual 
income was considered large enough to render substantial assist- 
ance to free-school support. In 181 8 an act of the Legislature 
appropriated the sum of $45,000 annually from the income of 
the fund for the education of poor children. 

This amount continued to be appropriated for that pur{5ose 
until 1850. The following year the constitution of the State was 
revised, and provision was made for applying to primary and 
free schools one half of the capitation taxes which the revised con- 
stitution required. Two years later all the capitation taxes were 
appropriated to educational purposes. From 1851 to 1854 the 
annual appropriation for free-school support was $75,000, and 
from 1855 to i860 the appropriation was increased to $80,000. 
At the outbreak of the war the permanent available capital of the 
literary fund was $1,877,000, which was yielding a fair return. 
In that year the total expenditures for the tuition and books of 
poor children and for the compensation of school officials were 
$190,000. Of this amount the sum of $80,000 came from the 
income of the permanent fund and the remainder from the 
capitation taxes. 



PERMANENT PUBLIC-SCHOOL FUNDS 169 

From 1818 to i860 the income from Virginia's permanent 
public-school fund was applied almost exclusively to the edu- 
cation of the poor, except in a few communities where the so- 
called free-district system had been adopted and where there 
was g. surplus beyond the actual necessities of poor children, in 
which case the county authorities could transfer such surplus to 
any incorporated college or academy in the county. Such transfers 
were not frequently made, however, if at all. Moreover, the 
literary fund belonged to all the people of the State, and the 
question was asked, " Is it right to take the property of the many 
and bestow it exclusively on the few ? " This method of distri- 
bution seemed the chief defect of the fund, though this was not 
its only weakness. Fully one fifth of the capital of the fund was 
reported lost on account of poor management and poor invest- 
ments and by debts due from defaulting officers. More than 
$382,000 was lost in these ways by 1856. Of this amount the 
sum of $59,090.52 was lost during the early life of the fund. 
Constant accumulation of funds in the treasury, which should 
have been invested for school purposes, was another criticism of 
the endowment. Moreover, fully 40 per cent of the resources of 
the fund was not directly applied to the purpose for which it was 
intended. 

South Carolina was the only Southern State which did not 
provide a permanent public-school fund before the Civil War and 
was likewise the only State in the South to support its ante- 
bellum public-school system entirely by annual legislative ap- 
propriations. On this subject several writers have fallen in 
error by stating that South Carolina established a school fund 
in 181 1. Among the earliest errors was one which appeared in 
Barnard's American Journal of Education, in 1873, Vol. XXIV, 
p. 317. A. D. Mayo made a similar mistake in the Report of the 
United States Commissioner of Education for 1894-1895, Vol. II, 
p. 1507. Boone, in his "Education in the United States" (1893), 
p. 86, and Dexter, in his "History of Education in the United 
States" (1904), p. 204, were led into the same error ; and Swift, in 



170 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

his "Public Permanent Common School Funds in the United 
States" (191 1 ), says, "South Carolina appears to have estab- 
lished a permanent school fund in 181 1, but little, if any, re- 
liable information concerning it has been available." Elsewhere 
the same writer says of the subject, "Complete and reliable 
data not available" (pp. 98, 389). A careful study by these 
writers of the logical sources of information would have rendered 
a happy service to later students of the subject.^ 

Georgia was the third Southern State to create a permanent 
public-school fund. As early as 1783 the governor recommended 
to the Legislature that seminaries of learning be given land en- 
dowments, and this suggestton proved to be the first step in the 
establishment of academies and of the state university. In July 
of that year endowments of lands were given to academies in 
three counties of the State, and the governor was given power 
to grant one thousand acres of land as s^n endowment for free 
schools in the other counties. The following year the state uni- 
versity was chartered and endowed with forty thousand acres 
of land. Nothing was done for public-school education, how- 
ever, until 181 7, when the sum of $250,000 was set apart for 
establishing and supporting free schools throughout the State ; 
and to that end the governor was empowered to invest the sum 
in bank or other profitable stock. In 1818 lots No. 10 and No. 
100 in each surveyor's district in certain counties were set apart 
for the education of the poor children, the proceeds from the 
sales of such lands to be kept as a permanent fund for that pur- 
pose. In 182 1 the sum of $500,000 was set apart for the perma- 
nent endowment of county academies and for increasing the funds 
which had already been appropriated to encourage and support 
free schools. At the same time a similar amount was appropri- 
ated for internal improvements in the State. 

The act provided that the $500,000 to be known as the school 
fund was to be composed of $200,000 of stock in the Bank of 

1 See Knight, The Influence of Reconstruction on Education in the South, 
chap. iv. 



PERMANENT PUBLIC-SCHOOL FUNDS 171 

Darien, the same amount of stock in the state bank, and $100,000 
of the stock in the Bank of Augusta. These sums were to be 
used for no other purpose than that of the school fund, and the 
interest was to be appHed only to education. The state treas- 
urer, comptroller general, trustees or commissioners of the county 
academies, and the inferior courts of the various counties, to- 
gether with the senators of the counties, were required to ex- 
amine and make full and accurate reports to the Legislature of 
the amounts received by the countiies in confiscated property or 
other endowment ; and when such information was obtained, the 
dividends yielded by half of tjie fund set apart by this act were to 
be apportioned and paid semiannually to the various counties, 
as the Legislature should direct, for the support of academies. The 
dividends yielded by the other half of the endowment were to be 
used for free-school support. One of these endowments came to be 
known as the academy fund, the other as the "poor school" fund, 
and this distinction persisted for many years. Up to 1829 the 
sum of $60,000 was appropriated from the former and $46,000 
from the latter for the support of academies and of public schools, 
respectively. 

When Georgia received its share of the surplus revenue of the 
Federal Government in 1837, which amounted to $1,051,422.09, 
one third of the amount was appropriated for educational sup- 
port, and a joint legislative committee of five members was 
appointed to digest and report a school plan for the State. The 
report was made, and as a result an act was passed in 1837 by 
which the academy and the "poor-school" funds were consolidated 
and, together with the $350,000 of the surplus revenue, a general 
free-school fund was constituted. In 1838 legislative provision was 
made for a county tax for school purposes, to be added to the com- 
mon free-school fund. But by an act of 1840 the acts of 1837 and 
1838 were repealed, and all school funds were merged into a 
"poor-school" fund, which remained the chief means of public 
educational support in Georgia until the reorganization period 
following the Civil War. 



172 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

The annual income from this fund from 1840 to i860 was de- 
signed for encouraging and supporting free schools, but the plan 
under which this financial assistance was administered was very 
unpopular, with the result that there was widespread indifference 
on the subject of public schools. However, between $30,000 and 
$40,000 seems to have been annually distributed from the en- 
dowment for free-school support, though the appropriation was 
often rejected because participation in the benefits of the fund 
was a confession of pauperism. This attitude toward the "poor 
school" fund was produced by the principle of distribution, 
which offered educational aid to only a portion of the people. 
This principle operated in several of the Southern States before 
i860 and aroused criticism of and outright hostility to so-called 
public educational effort. In Georgia the criticism was as gen- 
eral and as intense as elsewhere. "Poverty, though a great 
inconvenience, is no crime," said Governor William Schley, in 
1837, "and it is highly improper, whilst you offer to aid the cause 
of education, to say to a portion of the people, 'you are poor.' 
Thousands of freemen who, though indigent, are honest, patri- 
otic, and valuable citizens, will refuse your bounty and despise 
the hand that offers it, because it is accompanied with insult." 

Mississippi was made a territory of the Union in 1803 ^^^ 
comprised most of the region south of Tennessee and west of 
Georgia to the Mississippi River. In 181 7 it was made a State, 
and the act admitting it contained the provisions of the North- 
west Ordinance of 1787, that the sixteenth section of every town- 
ship should be set apart and reserved for the support of schools and 
that an entire township should be reserved for the support of a sem- 
inary of learning. At the first Legislature of the State, in 18 18, an 
act was passed which provided for the preservation of the sixteenth- 
section lands, and authority was given to the county courts to lease 
them and to apply the proceeds to the purposes of education. Three 
years later a literary fund was created for the support of schools, 
the sources of which were all escheats, confiscations, fines and 
forfeitures, and property accruing to the State. Neither the 



PERMANENT PUBLIC-SCHOOL FUNDS 173 

principal nor the interest of this fund could be used until it 
amounted to $50,000. In 1833 the fund reached that amount, 
and by act of March of that year provision was made for invest- 
ing it in stock of the Planters' Bank of Mississippi. The divi- 
dends from the investment were to be used for the education of 
poor children. Meantime provision had been made for leasing 
the school lands for ninety-nine years at public auction and on 
personal security, and the securities thus accepted proved in 
many cases to be insufficient. Moreover, rents were often not 
paid, and in this way a large amount of this source of school 
support was lost. The investment made in the Planters' Bank 
was likewise lost when that institution failed. 

The Chickasaw Fund and the Choctaw Fund were other funds 
used for educational purposes, but the growth and usefulness of 
these sources of school support are more or less uncertain. Both 
funds originated in the sixteenth-section land grants, which 
comprised about 838,329 acres. The Chickasaw counties, in the 
northern part of the State, received 174,555 acres and the Choc- 
taw counties, in the southern part, received 663,774 acres, and 
from the sale of these lands arose the two funds. Parts of the 
Choctaw lands were sold before 1833, but the proceeds were 
lost through mismanagement and unsafe securities, and other 
parts were leased for long terms. From the sales of the Chicka- 
saw lands a fund was created which finally came to be held in 
trust for the Chickasaw counties. The income from these funds 
was used under ante-bellum legislation for aiding schools in the 
two sections of the State. 

North Carolina's permanent public-school fund was created in 
1825 and was known as the literary fund. The act creating 
the fund defined its source as follows : 

The dividends arising from the stock now held by the State in the 
banks of Newbern and Cape Fear and which have not heretofore been 
pledged and set apart for internal improvements ; the dividends arising 
from stock which is owned by the State in the Cape Fear Navigation 
Company, and the Roanoke Navigation Company, and the Clubfoot 



174 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

and Harlow Creek Canal Company ; the tax imposed by law on licenses 
to the retailers of spirituous liquors and auctioneers ; the unexpended 
balance of the Agricultural Fund, which by the act of the Legislature 
is directed to be paid into the public treasury ; all moneys paid to the 
State for the entries of vacant lands (except the Cherokee lands) ; the 
sum of twenty-one thousand and ninety dollars, which was paid by 
this State to certain Cherokee Indians, for reservations to lands se- 
cured by them by treaty, when the said sums shall be received from 
the United States by this State ; and of all the vacant and unappro- 
priated swamp lands in this State, together with such sums of money as 
the Legislature may hereafter find it convenient to appropriate from 
time to time. 

The same act vested the funds thus provided in a board, who 
were instructed to invest them in such a way as to promote their 
value. When sufficiently accumulated the endowment was to be 
distributed among the counties in proportion to their free v^^hite 
population to be used for instructing the youth of the State in 
reading, writing, and arithmetic. 

The growth of the fund was slow during the first years of its 
existence, largely because it remained idle. The board was con- 
fronted with problems of safe investment as well as with other 
difficulties. By 1836, however, it was yielding an annual in- 
come of about $33,000, though nothing had yet been done to 
use it as a means of supporting public schools, chiefly because 
ft had not been considered large enough for that purpose. After 
1836 the fund was greatly increased by the distribution of 
the surplus revenue in the federal treasury. Enormous revenues 
had accumulated as a result of unprecedented land sales and of 
the protective tariff ; and under the leadership of Webster, who 
introduced the measure, an act was passed distributing the sur- 
plus on hand January i, 1837, among the several States then 
in the Union, on the basis of their representation in Congress. 
The States were to agree to return the money when called on, 
provided not more than $10,000 should be demanded at any time 
from any one State without sufficient notice, and all the States 



PERMANENT PUBLIC-SCHOOL FUNDS 175 

were to be called on for their respective parts at the same time. 
More than $28,000,000 was thus distributed. 

North CaroHna's share amounted to $1,433,757.40, and its 
disposition was determined by several important interests and 
conditions. The first of these was financial and had to do with 
internal improvements. Previous state aid to this interest had 
not only proved unprofitable but had failed to provide better 
transportation facilities. Moreover, private companies and in- 
dividual effort were ill prepared to engage in such enterprises, 
and with the era of railroad construction at hand there was a 
growing demand for a combination of state and private capital. 
Such a policy had been recommended repeatedly. It had also 
been urged that the vast acreage of unavailable swamp lands 
belonging to the State be drained so as to be made productive 
and profitable, but lack of funds prevented the State from in- 
augurating such a policy. 

A decrease in the ancient and intense sectional rivalry between 
eastern and western interests also proved of influence in deter- 
mining the disposition of North Carolina's share of the surplus 
revenue. This rivalry had for a generation existed as a result 
of an unequal distribution of representation in the Legislature, 
and demands for constitutional reform had as long been in- 
sistent. With the revision of the constitution in 1835 this reform 
was secured, and the conflict appeared less intense. Chance for 
united effort on public matters was now greatly enhanced. 
Moreover, the rise of the Whig Party revealed an important in- 
fluence in North Carolina, where it adopted, and in 1836 elected 
a governor on, the progressive policy of increased state aid 
to internal improvements. These conditions and influences were 
purely political in character. Another equally important in- 
fluence, perhaps, but of a different nature was the depleted 
condition of the state treasury. In the year that the surplus 
revenue was distributed North Carolina had a debt of about 
$400,000 and a record of expenses exceeding or equaling the 



176 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

revenues. And the literary fund was still insufficient for immediate 
educational service. 

A joint legislative committee was appointed to inquire into the 
best method of disposing of the share to which the State was 
entitled. The plan finally adopted appropriated $100,000 to the 
contingent expenses of the state government, $300,000 to redeem 
the public debt, $300,000 to the credit of the literary fund, 
$200,000 to drain the swamp lands, and the remaining $533,757.40 
to the fund for internal improvements. The appropriation to the 
literary fund was to be invested in stock of the Bank of Cape Fear, 
and the $200,000 appropriated to drain the swamp lands was in- 
directly an appropriation to the same fund, since the income from 
these lands was to be applied to it when the entries were made. 
Eventually all North Carolina's share became a part of the literary 
fund except the sum appropriated to the current expenses of the 
state government. But the $500,000 immediately placed to the 
credit of the fund was not the only increase of that endowment at 
this time ; by further legislation all the vacant swamp lands of the 
State were formally vested in the fund. Moreover, railroad 
stock owned by the State and amounting to $600,000, the reve- 
nue from certain loans made by the internal-improvements board, 
and stocks in the Bank of the State of North Carolina valued at 
$400,000 and in the Bank of Cape Fear valued at $300,000, both 
the property of the State, were likewise vested in the literary 
board for educational purposes. The principal of the literary 
fund was thus increased about $1,800,000. In November, 1840, 
the total resources of the fund amounted to more than $2,125,000. 

With the distribution of the surplus revenue the literary fund of 
North Carolina was large enough to be of considerable assistance 
to schools. Accordingly the first public-school law was enacted in 
the State in 1839, and a school system was shortly afterward 
established under it. The principle of school support adopted by 
this legislation was that of local taxation combined with appro- 
priations from the literary fund ; each local school district re- 
ceived from the income of the public endowment twice the 



PERMANENT PUBLIC-SCHOOL FUNDS / 177 

amount raised by local levy. Under this provision the State set 
in operation a creditable school system prior to i860. This 
method of school support seemed well adapted to the neei's of the 
State; in i860 more than $93,000 was raised in local ta?es and 
more than $186,000 was distributed from the literary fu.id to 
support public schools. 

Before i860 direct and permanent losses to the literary , fund 
in North Carolina were not very considerable, but occasional 
carelessness in investing the funds in securities of declining 
value showed shortsighted management. Several misfortunes befell 
the endowment, however', during the ante-bellum period. The 
defalcation of the, treasurer of the State in 1827 proved a tem- 
porary loss of about $28,000 to the fund, though the Legislature 
later returned the amount with interest. A decline in dividends 
from the stock held in state banks somewhat retarded the 
growth of the fund before 1836 and proved a slight misfortune 
to the endowment. During the thirties and forties the fund 
was now and then used to meet deficits in the public fund, and 
occasionally it was drawn on to meet interest charges on state 
bonds. Large sums from the fund were thus temporarily used 
for expenses of the state government. The amounts were finally 
returned, but the frequent loss in interest charges, which were 
not always repaid, and the manner of regarding the fund as 
a source of supply when emergency arose were unwise and 
unjust practices. 

The distribution of the surplus revenue in 1837 was a stimulus 
to education in many of the States. The table on page 178 shows 
the amounts the various States received and how the funds 
were used.^ 

Alabama's original constitution in 1819 provided that measures 
should be taken to preserve from waste or damage the lands which 
had been or which might be granted by the United States for the 
use of schools in each township in the State and that the funds 

^Blackmar, The History of Federal and State Aid to Higher Education, 
p. 46. 



178 



PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 



State 

i 

Alabama," . . . 

Arkansa,s . . . 

Conner^ .icut . . 

Delavrare . . . 
Georgia .... 

Illinois .... 

Indiana .... 

Kentucky . . . 
Louisiana . . . 
Maine .... 
Massachusetts . 
Maryland . . . 
Mississippi . . . 
Missouri .... 
Michigan . . . 
New Hampshire 
New Jersey . . 
New York . . . 
North Carolina . 

Ohio 

Pennsylvania . . 
Rhode Island . . 
South Carolina . 

Tennessee . . . 
Vermont . . . 
Virginia .... 



Amount 



$669,086.78 
286,751.48 
764,670.61 

286,751.48 
1,051,422.09 

477.919.13 
860,254.44 

i.443'75740 

477,919-13 
955,838.27 

io38>i73-57 
955.838-27 
382,335-31 
382,335-31 
286,751.48 
669,086.78 
764,670.61 
4,014,520.71 
1,433.757-40 

2,007,260.36 

2,867,514.80 

382,235.31 

1,051,422.09 

1.433,757-40 

669,086.78 

2,198,428.04 



How Used 



Education 

General purposes 

One half to education and one 
half to general purposes 

Education 

One third to education and two 
thirds to general purposes 

Education and internal improve- 
ments 

One haif to education and one 
half to general purposes 

Education 

General purposes 

General purposes 

General purposes 

Education and general purposes 

General purposes 

Education 

Internal improvements 

General purposes 

General purposes 

Education 

Education and internal improve- 
ments 

Education 

Partly for education 

Education 

One third to education and two 
thirds to general purposes 

General purposes 

Education 

General purposes 



raised from such lands should be applied in strict conformity 
to the object of such grants. The same instrument said that 
"schools and the means of education shall forever be encour- 
aged." From that time until the passage in 1854 of the first 
state-wide public-school law, the Legislature passed numerous 
acts dealing with the sixteenth section in each township which 



PERMANENT PUBLIC-SCHOOL FUNDS 179 

had been reserved by Congress for school purposes. One of the 
first of these acts was passed in 1819 and provided for leasing the 
school lands with a view to their improvement. The following 
year the limit of the leases was extended, and there began "a se- 
ries of special acts modifying the original law in favor of partic- 
ular claimants that in time worked havoc with the school lands." 
In 1823 another law was passed, which made further provision 
for leasing the lands and provided also for the organization of 
schools. Under the provisions of this act commissioners ap- 
pointed by the county courts were to survey the school lands 
and to lease them at auction for a period of ten years. In 1825 
the policy of incorporating school townships began, and the 
trustees were allowed to lease the lands to the highest bidder 
for a period of ninety-nine years, the proceeds from such leases 
to be invested in stock of the United States Bank or of the 
state bank. 

For many years following this legislation the history of the 
public-school lands of Alabama is in large part the history of 
the state bank. In 1828 provision was made for depositing in 
that institution note5~received in payment of school lands, to 
bear 6 per cent interest, and the principal collected on such sales 
could be invested in the stock of the bank, to bear the same inter- 
est and to be guaranteed by the State. A few years later there was 
a tendency to transfer the principal from the parent bank to 
its branches throughout the State "in order that local borrowers 
from the townships where these funds originated might be 
favored"; and by an act of 1837 the proceeds from the leases 
or sales of school lands, deposited in the bank or its branches, 
became the "capital stock of the said township." The principal 
of such funds could not be diminished, and only their income 
could be used for public-school support. A large quantity of 
school lands was sold under this legislation. In a short time, 
however, numerous private acts were passed extending the time 
of payment for certain purchasers, and at the session of 1 842-1 843 
the Legislature passed an act which provided for canceling the 



i8o PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

sales of school lands when ''the insolvency of the purchasers" 
or similar causes made such sales unproductive. The result was 
widespread cancellation during the next few years. 

Meanwhile the state bank had been very prosperous, and 
from 1836 to 1842 direct taxation was suspended, and the large 
income of the bank was looked to for defraying the expenses 
of the state government. The school fund naturally shared in 
this wave of prosperity. Moreover, the State had placed to the 
credit of the school fund its share of the surplus revenue of 
1837, amounting to $669,086.78, and this had been deposited 
in the state bank. In 1839 the bank was ordered to pay annually 
for school support the sum of $150,000, which was increased to 
$200,000 the following year. 

Prosperity did not continue, however. In 1843 direct taxation 
was resumed, and the bank being unable to pay its obligations to 
the State or to education the school appropriation required by the 
law of 1840 was repealed. In 1846 the bank was placed in the 
hands of trustees, who received legislative instructions to retain 
a sufficient amount of the institution's assets "to pay off the 
amounts that may be due the several townships." The following 
year further steps were taken in favor of the schools. The senate 
committee appointed to investigate the subject reported that up to 
December, 1847, more than $953,000 had been received from the 
sales of school lands and that more than $73,000 was due in 
interest on those sales. Some of the branch banks reported that 
the money had been lent "indiscriminately" with other funds and 
that the amount formed a "part of the good, bad, and doubtful 
debts due the State," or that it was credited to the several town- 
ships and was a "charge against the general assets of the bank." 
This was the case with the branches at Decatur, Tuscaloosa, 
Montgomery, and Mobile, but the Huntsville branch retained the 
funds which belong to the schools and paid interest on them 
quarterly. The committee also reported that the bank and its 
branches held notes given for school lands amounting to $453,000, 
more than $208,000 of which was in litigation. 



PERMANENT PUBLIC SCHOOL FUNDS i8i 

Steps were taken by legislation of 1848 to adjust the affairs of 
the state bank, and provision was made for vesting all funds 
arising from the sales of the sixteenth-section lands in the State, 
as trustee for the townships, and for paying such funds into the 
treasury of the State. The comptroller was required to report 
the amount due to each township, the governor was required to 
issue a certificate when other amounts were received, and the tax 
collector of each county "was required to deposit with the county 
treasurer an annual sum equal to the interest" at 6 per cent on 
the certificates held by the townships in the county. On the 
funds thus deposited the school commissioners could draw for 
school support. In 1853 it was reported that up to that time 
more than 558,000 acres of sixteenth-section lands had been sold 
for about $1,575,000 and that $1,183,000 had been paid into the 
state bank and to the state treasurer. The larger part of this 
had been funded in accordance with the act of 1848, and certifi- 
cates had been delivered to the township for their quota. In 
1850 the State owed the school fund about $995,000 in addition 
to about $59,000 in interest; in 1851 the interest on the school 
fund was more than $103,000; and in 1853 there were about 
$392,000 in notes which belonged to the townships. 
}/ One bitter criticism of the administration of the fund was on 
the failure to invest the proceeds of the land sales in safe interest- 
bearing securities. Another was on the inequality of distribution 
of such proceeds. Mr. William F. Perry, the first state superin- 
tendent of public schools in Alabama, said, concerning this 
condition : 

This fund, so far from being an aid, was really an obstacle in the 
way of the establishment of a general system of schools. Its uselessness 
for such a purpose was due to the great inequality of its distribution. 
There were many hundreds of townships whose school lands were 
totally valueless ; and probably more than half the remainder possessed 
funds so small as to be practically valueless. There were whole 
counties whose township funds consolidated would hardly have sup- 
ported a decent school. It should be remembered, too, that these 



1 82 rUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

sections of the State contained a white population at once the densest 
and the most needy. 

The townships having the largest school endowment were found 
chiefly in the Tennessee Valley and in the central portion of the 
State, known as the Black Belt. While it is true that the funds of 
most of them were legitimately and wisely used, it is also true that 
they belonged to those who were in least need of aid, and it is equally 
true that many of the most richly endowed townships were covered 
with cotton plantations and negro quarters and had no schools at all. 

/'This inequality of distribution was severely criticized by 
Judge A, B. !Meek at the session of the Legislature in 1 853-1 854. 
Judge Meek was chairman of the committee in the House which 
framed the school law of that year, and in presenting the proposed 
legislation, which he drafted, the chairman pointed out some inter- 
esting facts. At that time there were 1572 townships in the State, 
and 873 of these had made sales of their sixteenth sections ; the 
remainder had made no sales. The sales which had been made 
brought the sum of $1,575,598, and sales of the remainder 
would have increased the school fund to nearly $2,000,000. The 
value of the school lands in 13 counties was one third more than 
half the value of the total school lands of the State, although the 
white population of those counties was only about one fourth of 
the entire population of the State. Dallas County, for example, 
had a white population of 7000 and an annual school fund of 
$5000 ; Mobile had a white population of 18,000 and no fund 
at all. Covington County received less than $7 a year, while one 
township in Perry County had an annual school fund of $1200. 
This inequality had its origin in the original legislation, which 
made the school lands the property of the townships rather 
than of the State. 

By act of 1854 a state-wide and somewhat advanced school 
law was passed which looked to the elimination of the weak 
features of previous practices. Provision was made for a state 
educational fund and for establishing a creditable school plan, the 
features and operation of which will be treated in the following 



PERMANENT PUBLIC-SCHOOL FUNDS 183 

chapter. The educational fund was to consist of an annual 
8 per cent interest on the surplus revenue which the State re- 
ceived in 1837 ; ^^ annual interest of 8 per cent on the proceeds 
from the sale of certain lands granted by the Federal Government 
in lieu of certain valueless sixteenth-section lands ; an annual 
interest of 6 per cent on funds which had accrued or would ac- 
crue from the sale of sixteenth-section lands ; the sum of $100,000 
from the state treasury ; all escheats and taxes on banks, rail- 
roads, and insurance companies. In 1855 the income from these 
sources amounted to about $237,000, which increased to about 
$283,000 in i860. The fund thus established recognized the 
sources of school support which existed at that time and pro- 
vided for new sources. Provision was also made for a permissive 
local tax to supplement the income from the state funds, which 
were to be used exclusively for the payment of teachers. And 
from these sources the public schools of the State were main- 
tained until the war. 

This history of public education in Arkansas before the Civil 
War is largely the history of the sixteenth section, the seminary, 
and the saline lands, which constituted the basis of ante-bellum 
school support in the State, and in that respect may be regarded 
as a permanent fund. The sixteenth-section lands were the old- 
est of these sources of school support, dating from the Northwest 
Ordinance of 1787, and came into possession of the townships 
of Arkansas in 181 9, when it was organized as a territory. Under 
territorial laws of 1829, 1831, and 1833 provision was made for 
caring for these lands, which contained about 928,000 acres. 
Arkansas was admitted as a State in 1819; and although its 
constitution made no provision for creating a permanent school 
fund from the sale of these lands, the State accepted in the same 
year the terms on which the lands were granted, that their proceeds 
should be devoted to educational support. In 1843 legislative 
provision was made for selling or leasing the sixteenth-section 
lands, and the proceeds from such sales or leases were to become 
a perpetual fund, the income only to be used for public-school 



1 84 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

support. The lands were sold on ten years' time, however, and 
" in many cases were never paid for." For this and other reasons 
this source of school support was never very large. 

In 1827 Congress set aside two townships for the use and 
support of a seminary of learning, and the lands thus granted 
came to be known as the seminary lands. In 1833 authority 
was given to sell a part of them for university purposes, and 
three years later the Legislature was given complete authority 
over them. In 1838 provision was made for selling the seminary 
lands, and the proceeds from the sales were to become a part of 
the capital of the Bank of the State of Arkansas. A few sales 
seem to have been made, but trouble soon arose over conflicts 
with squatters' claims, and losses were incurred. In 1847 Pro- 
vision was made for applying the proceeds of the seminary lands 
to the public-school fund, and about the same time the Legisla- 
ture made the agent of the state lands the agent also of the semi- 
nary lands, with authority to dispose of them by private sales. 
The methods adopted under the provision caused another loss to 
this means of school support : the lands seem to have been pur- 
chased by a few individuals "who became securities for each 
other"; many of the notes were never paid, and the cash, which 
had been invested in the state bank, was lost to the schools with 
the failure of that institution. 

The story of the saline lands, which were granted to the State 
by the United States for educational purposes, is similar to that 
of the seminary lands. The saline lands consisted of about forty- 
six thousand acres, the larger part of which had been located by 
i860 and sold on the same terms as the seminary lands, the pro- 
ceeds becoming a part of the capital of the state bank. In 1853 
provision was made for applying the proceeds of these lands to 
the public schools, as was done in the case of the seminary funds 
in 1847. Thus all the lands granted to Arkansas for educational 
purposes were finally used for public-school support. Like the 
seminary lands, however, the funds arising from the saline lands 
were lost with the failure of the state bank. 



PERMANENT PUBLIC-SCHOOL FUNDS 185 

The income from all these funds was used for public-school 
support before i860. After 1849 the income from the seminary- 
fund was distributed to the various counties on the basis of school 
population, ''to be invested by the respective counties and to 
remain a perpetual fund." Under this method of distribution 
more than $285,000 was paid over to the counties by 1860.^ 
The income from the saline fund was similarly distributed after 
1853, and by i860 nearly $24,000 was paid over to the counties. 
From these sources and the funds arising from the sixteenth- 
section lands public schools were largely supported in Arkansas 
before the Civil War. These means were inadequate, however, and 
the income from the lands seems to have accomplished but "little 
toward universal education in Arkansas." More would doubt- 
less have been accomplished but for mismanagement and loss of 
the public funds. Probably $750,000 which should have gone 
for educational support was lost before 1870 by insufficient legis- 
lation, bad debts, and general mismanagement. 
. The provisions for school support in Texas were not alto- 
gether unlike those which were made in the States which received 
sixteenth-section lands under the provisions of the Northwest 
Ordinance. In 1839 the Republic of Texas made provision 
for schools by granting to each organized county three leagues 
for the purpose of supporting a primary school or an academy 
in each county, and fifty leagues for the support of two colleges ; 
and the following year an additional league was granted to each 
county for the same purpose. In 1845 Texas became a member 
of the Union, and its constitution provided that the Legislature 
should set apart as a perpetual fund "not less than one tenth 
of the annual revenue of the State, derivable from taxation," for 
the support of public schools. This provision of the constitution 
was complied with, and in 1854 the Legislature appropriated 
$2,000,000 of 5 per cent bonds in the state treasury for public- 
school purposes. The fund thus created was known as the 
"special school fund." The interest only was to be used for 

1 Weeks, History of Public Education in Arkansas, p. 99. 



1 86 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

supporting schools, and this was to be distributed among the 
counties of the State on the basis of their free white children 
between the ages of six and sixteen. The same act provided for 
establishing a school system in the State, to be supported by a 
combination of the income from the permanent fund and sub- 
scriptions and rate bills. In the same year Texas donated thirty- 
six million acres of land for encouraging railroad construction, 
and subsequent legislation gave the alternate sections of the 
lands to the school fund. The lands belonging to this fund orig- 
inally embraced an area of more than fifty million acres. These 
lands furnished the basis of abundant support for schools and 
gave to Texas the largest permanent endowment for that purpose 
to be found in the United States. A great deal of this source of 
school support was lost, however, through defaulted interest and 
by sales of lands for less than their value. 

Florida was made a territory in 1819, and in 1835 legislative 
attention was turned to the preservation of the sixteenth-section 
lands which each township received from Congress for school 
support and of the four townships of land received from the 
same source for the maintenance of seminaries of learning. In 
1839 legislative provision was made for school trustees in each 
township, who were empowered to lease the lands of the township 
and to apply the proceeds "for the benefit of common schools." 
In 1843 the sheriffs of the counties were made commissioners 
of the school lands and authorized to appropriate the funds accru- 
ing from such lands to the education of poor children. In 1845 
Florida was admitted to the Union, and its constitution, which 
had been framed seven years before, provided for the creation 
of a perpetual fund from the proceeds of all "lands that have 
been, or hereafter may be, granted by the United States for the 
use of schools and a seminary or seminaries of learning." The 
interest from this fund, "together with all moneys derived from 
any other source applicable to the same subject, shall be invio- 
lably appropriated to the use of schools and seminaries of learning, 
respectively, and to no other purpose." 



PERMANENT PUBLIC-SCHOOL FUNDS 187 

The original purpose was not to sell the sixteenth-section 
lands and consolidate the proceeds into a general school fund, 
but the rentals and proceeds from any sales of public lands were 
to be used for educational purposes in the townships to which the 
lands belonged. In 1848, however, the funds arising from the 
lands were taken from the authority of the townships and 
merged into a common fund under state control. To this fund 
were added also the net proceeds of all escheated estates, 5 per 
cent of the net proceeds from any other lands granted to the 
State by Congress, and all property found on the coast of the 
State. But the fund thus created was never large. In 1856 
the appropriation from this source was only about $6000, and at 
the outbreak of the Civil War it was only a few hundred dollars 
more. Funds arising from the endowment were distributed on a 
per-capita basis. In 1861 the school fund was surrendered to the 
State in exchange for certificates of indebtedness and seems to 
have been thus used for military purposes. At the close of the 
war the assets of the school fund were "about 600,000 acres of 
unsold school land." 

Louisiana was admitted to the Union in 18 12 and received about 
seven hundred and eighty-six thousand acres of sixteenth-section 
lands for the use of public schools. Ten per cent of the proceeds 
"of all public lands sold by the United States" was applied to 
school support in 1841, though several years passed "before any 
appreciable sums were received from these sources." In 1845 the 
constitution of the State provided for a perpetual fund, to consist 
of the proceeds of all lands which the United States had granted 
to the State for use of schools, of all lands which "may hereafter be 
granted or bequeathed" to the State unless given for some other 
purpose, and the proceeds of estates to which the State would be 
entitled by law. These sources were to be " held by the State as a 
loan," on which an annual interest of 6 per cent was to be paid 
for school support, together with the rents of all unsold lands. 
The fund thus provided for was to " remain inviolable," to be used 
only for the maintenance of public schools. 



1 88 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

By constitutional provision in 1852 these sources were con- 
tinued, and to them was added the interest of the State's share 
of the surplus revenue of 1837. This share, which amounted to 
$477,919.14, had already been used for general purposes, how- 
ever, and the legislation which appropriated to school support 
the interest on the amount established a credit fund rather 
than a productive endowment. Moreover, the sixteenth-section 
lands were held to be the property of the townships rather than 
of the State. Some of the townships surrendered their lands, 
however, and the proceeds were placed to the school fund ; others 
held their lands and received slight returns from them; and still 
others lost all record of their lands. 

By act of 1847 ^^d additional legislation in the fifties some- 
what advanced provisions were made for educating the white 
children of the State between the ages of six and sixteen. Chief 
among these was a provision for a property tax and a capitation 
tax for school support. These sources were to be combined with 
the income from the permanent school fund, and the total fund 
thus provided was to be apportioned to the various parishes on 
the basis of their scholastic population. Between 1847 and 
i860 the sum of $3,840,000 was appropriated for free-school 
support, but the amounts actually expended '' exceeded the appro- 
priations, owing doubtless to the payment of the annuity from the 
free-school fund out of the general fund."^ As a result of the Civil 
War and reconstruction, however, Louisiana's debt reached the 
sum of $40,000,000, and the school funds so liberally provided 
before i860 were exploited and largely lost along with other 
resources of the State. 

From the foregoing statement it will be seen that permanent 
public-school funds were established in all the Southern States 
except South Carolina before the Civil War, and that the ante- 
bellum public-school system was promoted in some measure by 
this means of financial support. In South Carolina, however, no 
such fund was established until 1868, and public-school support 
ipay, The History of Education in Louisiana, p. 105. 



PERMANENT PUBLIC-SCHOOL FUNDS 189 

in that State before that time was made from direct legislative 
appropriations. It may be seen also that public endowments for 
educational purposes served to develop a wholesome interest in 
schools and, in some cases at least, stimulated local initiative and 
community enterprise. It appears, also, that in spite of the im- 
portance of this means of school support the funds were often 
carelessly and indifferently administered and that the record of 
losses to such endowments is a discreditable chapter in the history 
of the public school. 

In addition to losses incurred during the ante-bellum period 
by incompetent management, maladministration, and the like, the 
school funds in most of the Southern States lost disastrously as 
a result of bank failures, depreciation of securities and of property 
during and following the Civil War, and as a result of exploitation 
during the period of reconstruction. Few if any of the States 
finally escaped losses from such causes during those years. 
Florida, Georgia, and Virginia used portions of their school 
funds for military purposes ; the fund in Tennessee was greatly 
diminished by the failure of the state bank in which it was 
invested ; North Carolina's fund was largely lost in the wreck 
that came to the banking system of the State in 1865 ; Louisi- 
ana's fund was exploited and largely lost during the years im- 
mediately following the war ; and the funds in the other States 
were in these or other ways greatly diminished if not entirely 
lost between 1861 and 1876. 

In the constitutions framed in accordance with the congres- 
sional plan of reconstruction the ante-bellum provisions for 
perpetual school funds were continued practically unchanged. 
Following reconstruction and during the years of readjustment, 
changes in the constitutional and legislative provisions for this 
form of school support were made, and gradually more or less 
creditable funds were reestablished in practically all the Southern 
States as an aid to public-school education. In 191 7 permanent 
public-school funds of one kind or another were reported in Vir- 
ginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Mississippi, 



190 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

Florida, Arkansas, Alabama, Texas, and Louisiana. In that year 
Georgia had no permanent school fund, but was supporting its 
schools rather liberally by legislative appropriations raised by 
public taxation. 

By the constitution of the State the permanent public-school 
fund of Virginia consists of the proceeds of all public lands do- 
nated by Congress for public free-school purposes, all escheated 
property, all waste and unappropriated land, all proceeds accru- 
ing to the State by forfeitures, all fines collected for offenses 
committed against the State, and such other sums as the Legis- 
lature may appropriate. The total fund amounts to more 
than $3,525,000 and is invested in state bonds and other se- 
curities which yield from 3 to 6 per cent interest. The annual 
interest is applied exclusively to the maintenance of primary and 
grammar schools. The second auditor of Virginia is by law the 
accountant of the fund, and its securities are kept in his office. 
He collects all the interest, deposits it in the state treasury, 
and pays it to the objects for which the fund is designed. 

The "State Literary Fund" is the permanent public-school 
fund of North Carolina and, under an act of 1903, which re- 
organized the endowment, it consists of all funds derived before 
that time from the sources enumerated in the constitution and all 
funds hereafter so derived, together with the interest on such 
funds. The fund amounts to about $550,000 and is in safely se- 
cured notes which yield 4 per cent interest annually. The Leg- 
islature of 191 7 added to the fund the sum of $500,000, which is 
to be available in six annual installments. With the present 
rate of increase the fund will amount to more than $1,250,000 
when the recent legislative appropriation has been received. 
The interest on this fund is used exclusively to build and im- 
prove public schoolhouses, under rules and regulations adopted 
by the state board of education. Loans are made to the county 
board of education, payable in ten annual installments, at 4 
per cent interest, and are secured by notes of the county board 
and a lien upon the total school funds of the county. All houses 



PERMANENT PUBLIC-SCHOOL FUNDS 191 

built by aid from this fund are required to be constructed in 
strict accordance with plans approved by the state department 
of education. Every county in the State has been assisted in 
this way, and nearly one fourth of all the public schoolhouses of 
the State have been built or improved by the aid of this fund 
since 1903. 

The total amount of South Carolina's permanent public-school 
fund, which was created in 1868, is nearly $62,000, invested in 
South Carolina bonds, which yield 4^ per cent interest. The 
income derived from these investments is apportioned to the 
counties of the State by the state board of education for public- 
school support. The permanent school fund of Tennessee 
amounts to $2,512,500 and is in the form of a certificate of 
indebtedness, on which the State pays an annual interest of 6 
per cent.^ To this fund other items may be added from time 
to time ; among these are the proceeds of all escheated property, 
forfeitures, and other items. The income from this fund amounted 
to more than $133,000 in 191 6 and was distributed to the 
various counties for public-school support. 

Mississippi has certain small funds, known as the Chickasaw 
Fund, the Choctaw Fund, the Hancock Fund, and the township 
funds, which aggregate approximately $1,500,000 and are in- 
vested at an average annual rate of 6 per cent. The income from 
these funds is used for the purpose of extending the public-school 
term, supplementing the salaries of teachers, repairing build- 
ings, and adding to the equipment of schools. Florida's per- 
manent school fund amounts to more than $1,500,000 and is 
invested in bonds and securities which yield from 3 to 8 per 
cent. The income from these investments is annually distributed 
to the various counties on the basis of average attendance. 

The permanent school fund of Arkansas amounts to about 
$1,154,000 and is invested in 5 per cent bonds. The income from 
this investment goes to the state apportionment for public- 
school support, on the basis of scholastic population. Alabama's 
^Public School Laws of Tennessee (1916), pp. 27, 28. 



192 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

permanent school fund comprises the proceeds from the sales 
of sixteenth-section lands, proceeds from the sales of indemnity- 
lands, proceeds from the sales of the so-called valueless sixteenth- 
section lands, and the United States surplus revenue, amounting 
in all to more than $3,000,000. The fund is held in trust by the 
State for the support of public schools and yields from 4 to 6 per 
cent annually. The income is credited to the general educational 
fund of the State. 

The permanent school fund of Texas amounts to more than 
$68,000,000 and "consists of bonds, land notes, unsold lands, and 
cash on hand." The income from this endowment is known as the 
state available school fund and is used for general school support, 
being apportioned to the school districts on the basis of scholastic 
population. Louisiana's permanent fund consists of a state 
debt due the school fund, certain consolidated and constitutional 
bonds, which represent the proceeds from sixteenth-section lands, 
and unsold common-school lands. The state debt to the fund 
yields a certain revenue which, in reality, however, comes from 
state taxation ; and as interest on the sixteenth-section funds 
deposited with the state treasurer the schools receive about 
$92,000 a year, which increases with new sales. This income 
is used for general public-school support. 

It will be seen that permanent public-school endowments 
represented a form of indirect taxation for school support. They 
served both to relieve the people temporarily of a direct burden 
and to stimulate what may properly be called a quasi-public 
educational effort. It should also be kept in mind that this 
means of aiding the support of public schools became popular 
when the idea of education as a public obligation and function 
was weak and faltering. The beginnings of direct state taxa- 
tion for public schools had not yet been made in the South. But 
the agitation of the question of state support of schools was 
widening and gaining force, and through the means of permanent 
public-school endowments sentiment for direct public support 
of education gained in favor. Even with this assistance for the 



PERMANENT PUBLIC-SCHOOL FUNDS 193 

cause, however, many years were to pass before the principle of 
free public education for all the children, by taxation on all the 
property of the State, was to be safely established. 

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION AND FURTHER STUDY 

1. Explain the bitter fight which early developed over the question 
of school support by public taxation. What evidence can you offer 
to show that the fight has not yet been entirely won? 

2. Why were the lawmaking bodies of the early national period 
slow and reluctant to follow the urgings of the governors to make 
adequate provision for public schools ? Why are present-day legis- 
lative bodies often very slow to take advanced and progressive educa- 
tional steps promptly? 

3. Make a study of the ante-bellum permanent school fund of your 
State and compare it with similar funds in other States in (a) purp)ose, 
(b) sources, (c) method of administration and of operation, (d) re- 
sults and influence. 

4. In what way did permanent public-school funds promote the 
establishment of public-school systems in the Southern States ? In what 
way, if any, did such funds retard the growth of public schools in 
those States ? 

5. What are the sources and the size of the present permanent 
public-school fund of your State ? For what purposes is the fund now 
used? 

6. Did the operation of the permanent public-school fund in your 
State before the Civil War have any effect in retaining the element of 
charity in pubhc educational effort ? Why ? 

7. Make a study of the growth of taxation for public schools in 
your State and account for the opposition which the principle of taxa- 
tion for schools has had to meet. 

8. What arguments are made against taxation for pubhc education — 
elementary, secondary, and higher — in your State? in your imme- 
diate community? Point out the weakness of such arguments as they 
are now used. 

9. Explain why the older States often established permanent funds 
before they set up a state school system. 



194 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH j 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Acts of the Legislature of the various States. Alabama Journal of Edu- 
cation, April, 1 87 1. BarnarDj articles in The American Journal of Education, 
30 vols. Hartford, 1855-1881. Boone, Education in the United States. New 
York, 1893. Bourne, The History of the Surplus Revenue of 1837. New York, 
1885. Boyd, "The Finances of the North Carolina Literary Fund," in The 
South Atlantic Quarterly, July and October, 1914. Circulars of information, 
United States Bureau of Education : Bush, History of Education in Florida 
(Washington, 1889) ; Blackmar, History of Federal and State Aid to Higher 
Education in the United States (Washington, 1890) ; Clark, History of 
Education in Alabama (Washington, 1889) ; Fay, History of Education 
in Louisiana (Washington, 1898) ; Jones, Education in Georgia (Wash- 
ington, 1889); Lane, History of Education in Texas (Washington, 1903); 
Mayes, History of Education in Mississippi (Washington, 1899) ; Merri- 
man. Higher Education in Tennessee (Washington, 1893) > Shinn, History 
of Education in Arkansas (Washington, 1900) ; Smith, The History of Edu- 
cation in North Carolina (Washington, 1888). Dexter, History of Educa- 
tion in the United States. New York, 1904. Heatwole, A History of 
Education in Virginia. New York, 1916. Journals of the Legislature of 
the various States. Knight, Public School Education in North Carolina. 
Boston, 1916. Knight, The Influence of Reconstruction on Education in 
the South. New York, 1913. Mayo, "Original Estabhshment of State 
School Funds," in Report of the United States Commissioner of Education, 
1894-189S, Vol. II. Perry, "The Genesis of Public Education in Alabama," 
in Transactions of the Alabama Historical Society, Vol. II. Poore, The 
Federal and State Constitutions, 2 vols. Washington, 1877. Public Docu- 
ments of the various States. Swift, Public Permanent Common School 
Funds in the United States. New York, 1911. Weeks, Calvin Henderson 
Wiley and the Organization of the Common Schools of North Carolina. 
Washington, 1898. Weeks, History of Public School Education in 
Arkansas. Washington, 1912. Weeks, History of Public School Education 
in Alabama. Washington, 1915. Weeks, History of Public School Educa- 
tion in Tennessee (examined in manuscript). Whitaker, "The Public 
School System of Tennessee, 1 834-1 860," in Tennessee Historical Magazine, 
Vol. II, No. I. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE AWAKENING AND ATTEMPTS AT REFORM 

Outline of the chapter, i. The educational revival during the second 
quarter of the nineteenth century was a part of a broad reform 
movement and was not confined to any particular section of the 
country. The movement was being felt throughout the South at the 
outbreak of the Civil War. 

2. The response in Virginia appeared in legislation for schools as 
early as i82g, but the school plan most widely used during the re- 
mainder of the ante-bellum period was defective in principle, purpose, 
and operation. Throughout that time, however, there appeared a grow- 
ing sentiment for better educational opportunity which reflected itself 
in several ways, especially in the work of educational conventions, but 
the war interrupted the practical improvement promised in the fifties. 

3. South Carolina held back also from estabHshing an adequate sys- 
tem of public schools before i860. In 1835 slight improvement was 
made in the law of 181 1, and the movement for better provisions was 
agitated constantly during the next twenty-five years. Several attempts 
were made to revise the laws and to inaugurate a complete system, 
but all efforts for practical reforms failed. 

4. The plan set up in Tennessee in 1830 served as the basis of the 
ante-bellum school system in that State. After 1835, conscious efforts 
were made to improve the schools, which had many misfortunes before 
.i860. Slight improvement was made by that date, and plans for a 
complete reorganization were being made at the outbreak of the war. 
/ 5. The fortunes of public schools in North Carolina were not alto- 
|gether unlike those of the other States, but the plan of 1839 and 

improvements in 1852 made possible a school system somewhat ad- 
vanced in support and control. 

6. Georgia showed promise of providing a creditable school plan be- 
fore 1825, and efforts at improvement were made during the next three 
decades. But the State failed to establish more than a permissive county 
system which was unfortunately intended primarily for poor children. 

195 



196 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

7. Similar experiments for public educational reform were carried 
on in Louisiana, which was able to achieve slight success ; in Mississippi, 
where the subject of schools was greatly agitated before the war ; in 
Alabama, which showed marked improvement in the fifties ; in Arkansas, 
where early legislation proved defective and impracticable ; and in 
Florida and Texas, in which States the reform movement was also 
thwarted by the war. 

8. The response of the Southern States to the spirit of the educa- 
tional revival was therefore not complete, but a new consciousness on 
the subject was being aroused at the close of the ante-bellum period. 

9. Slavery, aristocratic conceptions, sectarian interests, objection 
to taxation for school purposes, the rural character of the South, poor 
means of communication, and other factors combined to retard the 
revival spirit. 

10. Certain other factors were at work, however, to promote the 
cause of schools, and considerable progress was made for elementary 
education in the South prior to the Civil War. 

From the preceding chapters it will be seen that during the 
first four or five decades of the national period education was 
gradually transferred from the Church and ecclesiastical control 
to control by the State. But this transfer was slowly made. 
Many forces of an economic, social, and political nature had been 
at work during the first half century of national life, and out 
of these influences marked changes appeared in education. There 
was an expansion in state constitutional provisions for schools, 
and more specific and mandatory legislative provisions were 
substituted for the general and vague provisions of the earlier 
period. New demands were made for educational facilities, and 
a new impetus was given to state support and control of schools. 
A new educational consciousness was aroused, and toward the 
close of the first half of the nineteenth century there appeared 
an educational revival which was rapidly and widely extending 
at the outbreak of the Civil War. 

Several influences combined to produce this new consciousness, 
on the subject of schools as an obligation of the State. During 
the second quarter of the nineteenth century there appeared a 



ATTEMPTS AT REFORM 197 

gradually developing faith in the power of the people. Jeffer- 
sonian democracy was rapidly culminating. Property qualifications 
and other similar restrictions on suffrage and officeholding were 
slowly abolished and the franchise was extended. Class rule 
and political inequalities which had grown out of the aristocratic 
conception of government and of education were losing and the 
democratic movement was gaining strength. There was an in- 
crease in the number of elective officers, and in other ways the 
democratic theory of government was extending. Industrial meth- 
ods were slowly changing, larger centers of population were 
developing, and villages were forming here and there. These 
changes were more rapidly made in other sections than in the 
South, but even there the nature of the educational problem in 
the second quarter of the nineteenth century was entirely unlike 
that of the colonial or the early national period. 

The educational awakening which thus appeared was a part of 
a broad reform movement in the development of sound democratic 
ideals. Educationally the storm center of this reform was doubt- 
less in Massachusetts and Connecticut, where Horace Mann and 
Henry Barnard were conspicuous leaders and where educational 
progress was more or less spectacular. But the change which 
was taking place during these years showed itself in educational 
effort in other sections of the country as well as in New England. 
Awakened sentiment for popular education appeared in New 
York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Ohio, Indiana, Illi- 
nois, and Michigan, and in a few of the Southern States. But 
slavery and its natural hindrances to the theory of public educa- 
tion and certain other factors somewhat delayed the revival in 
education in that region. Even there, however, the ground 
for a reorganization of educational effort was being prepared, 
public opinion was slowly being molded, and a general move- 
ment for free-school systems was rapidly gaining in the fifties. 
This movement was least successful in those States which in- 
herited the most persistent English traditions and where class 
distinctions were m.ost sharply drawn, and most successful where 



198 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

class distinctions were least pronounced and where the middle 
class was strongest. Throughout the South generally, however, 
the movement was being felt to a greater or less degree at the 
outbreak of the Civil War. 

Virginia and South Carolina, more nearly English in traditions 
and interests than any of the older States, reacted only feebly 
to the revival, though agitation for increased educational opportu- 
nity reached creditable proportions in each State in the fifties. 
It was pointed out in preceding chapters that Virginia established 
a permanent school fund in iSio, which grew into a large 
endowment by i860, and that in a very small measure the State 
committed itself to the theory of its renowned educational 
statesman when it enacted the law of 1818. It was also pointed 
out that conditions in South Carolina were not altogether unlike 
those in Virginia and that the theory of education was practically 
the same in each State. South Carolina had given attention to the 
subject of public schools and had adopted a school plan for 
the poorer citizens; but the law of 181 1, which served as the 
legal basis of the State's entire ante-bellum educational legisla- 
tion, was so defective in principle as to prevent its own success. 

The school plan created in Virginia by the act of February, 
18 1 8, was at first very clumsy, though Governor Preston said 
in his message to the Legislature the following December that 
the plan promised great success. From the limited experiments 
made by the school officials, from some of whom reports had 
been received, he believed that "most important advantages to 
the community may be derived from their efforts under the law 
of the last session." But the system was not to be very success- 
ful. The early reports on its operation showed numerous ob- 
stacles, some of which were not contemplated when the plan 
was made. Among these were insufficiency of funds, a lack of 
convenient schools, a lack of decent food and clothing (which 
"deters parents from exposing their poverty to the world"), 
a lack of individual zeal, and the inability of parents to clothe 
and feed their children "so as to make them regular scholars." 



ATTEMPTS AT REFORM 199 

Extreme poverty in one county led to the suggestion that the 
county commissioners should furnish ''cheap clothing for a number 
of poor children whose parents and guardians are too indigent 
to admit of furnishing them." In some counties it was practically 
impossible, on account of the sparseness of population, to secure 
teachers ; and many of those who were teaching in the State 
would not have been chosen had there been competition in their 
selection, though teachers of "correct morals" were usually 
engaged. It also appeared that some of those who were taught 
during the early operation of the system were themselves later 
engaged to teach in the schools which they had attended. 

As early as 1826 serious questions began to be raised about 
the system, which was reported as not meeting "the just expecta- 
tions of the State." The literary fund, which at that time had a 
large permanent capital, was devoted almost exclusively to pur- 
poses of charity. In that year the governor recommended the 
suspension of the entire system until the work could be renewed 
on a more extended and satisfactory plan. This part of his 
message was referred to the appropriate legislative committee, 
which made a suggestive investigation and report. The com- 
mittee applauded the educational efforts of other States, but 
declared that Virginia should not be " insensible to the fact, that in 
this generous career, in which , . , she might have been expected 
to be a leader, her young sisters have preceded her." If the sys- 
tem had not utterly failed, the report continued, it had not been 
productive of the beneficial results which had been anticipated. 
Moreover, the official reports of the school commissioners, per- 
sonal observation, and "the general opinion of those most con- 
versant with the practical operation of the system" confirmed the 
governor's opinion. The committee concluded that the failure 
of the system was not due to accidental defects in the details 
of its administration, but to permanent and inherent weaknesses 
in the principle of the plan. It was recommended that it 
was inexpedient either to suspend the system or to apply the 
funds exclusively to the education of the poor; that the annual 



200 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

appropriation should be applied generally ; that there should be 
a combination of private contributions or tuition fees with the 
public bounty ; and that an assessment should be authorized to 
supply the necessary funds when the annual appropriation and the 
tuition fees were insufficient. 

These recommendations later led indirectly to the passage of 
a law in 1829 which became the basis of the so-called "district 
free-school system" of the State. By this law the school com- 
missioners were authorized to divide their counties into con- 
venient school districts, and when the inhabitants of a district 
raised by voluntary contribution three fifths of the amount 
necessary to erect "a good and sufficient schoolhouse," the local 
authorities could appropriate the remaining two fifths for that 
purpose out of the usual county appropriation from the income 
from the literary fund, provided it did not exceed 10 per cent of 
that appropriation. The school building and lot were to become 
the property of the State. The local authorities could appropriate 
$100 out of the regular county appropriation ''for the empby- 
ment of a good and sufficient teacher" for such a school, pro- 
vided a like or greater amount should be raised by the inhabitants 
of the district. The school was to be open free to all white chil- 
dren of the district and to be under the control of three dis- 
trict trustees, two of whom were to be elected by the inhabitants 
of the district and the third appointed by the county school 
commissioners. The same act allowed teachers four cents a day 
for instructing each poor child entered by the commissioners, 
but no allowance was to be made for any child who was not 
actually entered by a county commissioner. Further provision 
was made by which the commissioners could purchase books, 
stationery, and other necessary school articles for poor children, 
provided such expenditure did not exceed 5 per cent of the annual 
school quota of the county. 

A few counties took preliminary steps immediately to adopt 
the new system, but it was never more than partially established 
by any. By 1835 the district free-school system had been 



ATTEMPTS AT REFORM 201 

partially adopted in Monroe, Franklin, Campbell, Southampton, 
Smyth, and Washington counties, but in all of these, except the 
last, it was finally discontinued or abandoned. It was evident 
that the legal provisions were insufficient to promote the plan. 
Campbell County reported in 1836 that its school was "dormant 
for the last year owing to a providential state of things beyond 
the control of man " ; and the commissioners in most of the 
other counties where the experiment was tried soon came to take 
no notice of the "free-school" attempts, but gave their attention 
to the education of the poor under the plan inaugurated in 181 8. 
In Washington County, however, the system showed some prom- 
ise of success. In 1835 thirty-eight of its fifty-four districts 
had free schools in houses built largely at the expense of the 
local communities, and two years later thirty-one of its fifty 
districts had schools under the law of 1829. 

In 1840 some of the county commissioners referred to the 
district plan of 1829 and recommended its continuance and 
gradual introduction into the counties of the State. It was sug- 
gested that legislation be enacted authorizing the counties dis- 
posed to adopt the plan to raise by levies upon themselves the 
amount of any deficiencies which existed after the funds of the 
State and the voluntary contributions had been applied. Lack 
of funds and the permissive character of the legislation, however, 
were not the only obstacles confronting the plan. There were 
only eleven white people to the square mile in the State and 
only three of school age, and this sparsity of population operated 
seriously against the practicability of the system. Moreover, 
it contained a charity feature which greatly limited its possibilities 
for usefulness, and for that reason it was only a slight improve- 
ment over the plan of 1818. Attempts to improve the district 
free-school system in the forties will be noted farther on in this 
chapter. 

With the exception of the law of 1829, which gave only slight 
stimulus to educational effort in the State, conditions continued 
unchanged. The system inaugurated in 1818 had undergone 



202 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

little or no improvement in organization or administration, but 
it was doubtless ministering to the educational needs of many 
children who would otherwise have been entirely neglected. 
The actual operation of the system and the place it held in 
popular esteem may be viewed measurably well from represent-, 
ative reports of the county commissioners between 1830 and 1850. 

From these reports it appeared that the commissioners in 
Albemarle County were not in the habit of examining the quali- 
fications of the teachers. Sparseness of population in Bath County 
prevented the maintenance of schools in "many neighborhoods 
where some children reside who are proper objects of the fund." 
The commissioners resided at such a distance from the schools 
that they were unable to "give much satisfactory informa- 
tion" concerning the state of education in their county. Brooke 
County gave no preference "either to boys or girls" and Cabell 
County followed the same policy. There were many poor children 
in the latter county who "would have remained in entire igno- 
rance of the elementary branches of education " but for the annual 
appropriation from the literary fund. 

The children sent to school in Campbell County "progressed 
in learning as well as other children of equal capacities." The 
commissioners in one year failed to report "agreeable to law" 
on account of a heavy rain on the day previous to their annual 
meeting, which prevented them from attending. In Cumberland 
County the children sent to school were between eight and 
fifteen years of age, preference being given to the eldest. In one 
year no children were sent to school in Fayette County because 
the treasurer had neglected to draw the county's quota of the 
fund. No distinction was made between girls and boys in Floyd 
County ; the commissioners had difficulty in securing good teach- 
ers, "but they think this will soon be obviated, as the coun- 
try becomes more enlightened." The commissioners of Frank in 
County believed the funds should be confined to poor childn.n. 
The quota allowed Goochland County was as much "as can be 
beneficially applied under the present system"; the commissioners 



ATTEMPTS AT REFORM 203 

thought it impracticable to district "the county, as authorized 
by law." The commissioners of Grayson County made provision 
for the children between eight and fifteen years of age and 
"only such whose parents, guardians, or friends, promise their 
constant and punctual attendance." If a sufficient number of 
teachers could have been secured in Hardy County "very great 
advantages might result from the funds appropriated to the 
education of the poor." The commissioners in Isle of Wight 
County considered as coming within the meaning of the word 
"indigent" those children whose parents were "unable to pay 
their just debts, and others who have but little property." The 
teachers of Kanawha County were known to be of good moral 
character and "capable of instructing in the common rudiments 
of education." 

Good teachers could not be had in every neighborhood in 
Mason County, where "the settlement is too thin to afford a 
numerous school." The commissioners of Monongalia County 
believed the system very defective, though they were unable to 
suggest corrective measures. They did believe, however, that 
the qualifications of teachers should be more carefully guarded : 
"many of the teachers are but little qualified, and a great waste 
of public money is the consequence." Morgan County had diffi- 
culty in securing good teachers. The quota allowed Northum- 
berland County was "amply sufficient to educate" all its poor 
children. The commissioners of Norfolk Borough appropriated 
their quota of the school fund to "the Lancaster school," the 
trustees of which agreed to educate the poor children sent by 
the commissioners ; and a female orphan asylum, maintained by 
private benevolence, seems to have received slight aid from the 
state bounty. In Nottoway County it was not difficult to find 
" fit subjects to be sent to school : it is, to appearance, a scuffle 
as to who shall be sent." The children were taught only reading, 
writing, and arithmetic in Orange County. No preference was 
given to either sex, " as the commissioners conceive that degree of 
education necessary for girls as well as boys." Four Sunday 



204 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

schools in Petersburg, with ninety teachers and six hundred 
"scholars on their registers," a night school maintained by the 
Mechanics' Benevolent Association and open to the children 
or the apprentices of the members, and an infant school "skill- 
fully and faithfully taught" furnished unusual educational op- 
portunity for that community. But the benefits of these schools 
were not generally extended to the poor children of the commu- 
nity, and the commissioners believed that State aid should be 
given to those schools in return for instructing some poor children. 

The teachers of Prince Edward County were not examined. 
Schools were scarce in Prince George County, and it was diffi- 
cult to get the children to attend such schools as were accessible 
to the various neighborhoods. Some of the children received 
benefit in Pittsylvania County, while others, "owing to the 
incompetency of the teachers," received but little benefit. Teach- 
ers were not examined in Randolph County. Many of the 
teachers in Rockbridge County were "of correct moral deport- 
ment." All the teachers in Southhampton County were "ex- 
amined as to their qualifications and moral character," and Smyth 
County had "adopted rules for the examination of teachers." 

In the main these conditions continued practically unchanged 
throughout the ante-bellum period. In 1837 Governor David 
Campbell had asked the Legislature why it had failed to make 
adequate educational provision for the State ; he was alarmed 
at the extent of illiteracy, which he regarded as humiliating. 
A year later he said that the system established in 181 8 was not 
only defective in principle but imperfectly administered, and he 
doubted if much good had been actually accomplished since 
it was put in operation. In that year there were 200,000 children 
in the State between the ages of five and fifteen. Fully 40,000 
of them were poor and only half of that number were in school. 
Those in school, the governor said, derived little or no ii struction 
"owing to the incapacity of the teachers, as well as to their 
culpable negligence and inattention." The number likely to 
remain uneducated was "really of appalling magnitude," and the 



ATTEMPTS AT REFORM 205 

literary destitution of such a large portion of the population 
demanded a reorganization of the school system and ample pro- 
visions for putting it into successful practice. The present sys- 
tem, looking only to the poor and insufficiently supported, could 
not be effective in promoting any general reformation of the 
undesirable conditions. 

The entire scheme was generally considered defective and 
unwholesome. By discriminating between classes in the com- 
munity the plan aroused the hostility of the poorer people, for 
whom it was designed, and they were generally unwilling to pro- 
claim themselves paupers by accepting the scant charity thus 
extended them by the State. Moreover, the plan was separated 
from the interest and influence of the public by the provision 
which placed the appointment of the county commissioners, who 
were to administer the annual appropriation of the literary fund, 
in the hands of the county courts which had so effectively ob- 
structed the inauguration of the system provided by the law 
of 1796. These defects alone were sufficient to defeat the system, 
but educational advancement was also seriously retarded because 
the plan made no demand on local initiative and community effort. 
Although occasional amendments made to the original act served 
clumsily as devices for mitigating the disappointment of the friends 
of education and for decreasing the hostility of the class for whom 
the plan was established, yet the Legislature remained inactive and 
furnished no permanent relief. 

In December, 1841, Governor Rutherford believed that some 
form of taxation should be authorized for public schools, but 
the Legislature remained inactive. A year later Superintendent 
Francis H. Smith, of the Virginia Military Institute, in a com- 
munication to the governor, said that the school system was both 
"defective and inoperative," and he appealed to those in authority 
for a remedy. In 1843 Governor McDowell called attention to the 
educational need of the State, saying: ''I should be faithless to 
one of my clearest and most honorable duties if I did not present 
it again, and again invoke for it the care, the thought and the 



2o6 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

legislation to which it is entitled." He urged taxation for school 
support. In 1844 and again in 1845 the same governor called 
attention to the important subject. "I should rejoice," he said, 
"to be spared the necessity of the duty, but neither I nor any 
executive ever can be, so long as the legislative and statistical 
history of this subject remains as it is." It was time, he believed, 
for the Legislature to decide whether education was to be regarded 
as a private concern or as an interest of the State. 

During these years, however, a growing sentiment had appeared 
in favor of better educational opportunity and had reflected itself 
in a series of educational conventions. These meetings were 
largely the result of a rising educational sentiment in the western 
counties. Most of the colleges of the State and the larger part of 
the academies were located on the eastern slope of the great divid- 
ing mountain range, which was slaveholding and aristocratic. In 
the western counties slavery was less extensive, and there grad- 
ually developed a middle class whose influence was beginning to 
be felt. In this region public educational sentiment was whole- 
some and strong; it was the vote of the members of the Legis- 
lature from this region which had passed the educational law of 
1796, of 1810, and of 1829. In the eastern counties, more aristo- 
cratic and wealthy, education was regarded as a private and 
domestic concern ; in the western section education by tutors or 
private schools was not available for the masses. And the agitation 
for public schools was strong. 

One of these conventions had been held in Clarksburg, now in 
West Virginia, in the autumn of 1841, and had been attended by 
more than one hundred delegates, many of whom were very promi- 
nent. Educational subjects were discussed, and committees were 
appointed to prepare an address to the people of the State and a 
memorial to the Legislature. Another convention ^as held in 
Lexington, and delegates attended from Augusta, Batl , Botetourt, 
and Rockbridge counties. The meeting was presided over by 
Dr. Henry Ruffner, president of Washington College (now Wash- 
ington and Lee University) and father of William H. Ruffner, 



ATTEMPTS AT REFORM 207 

Virginia's celebrated educational leader from 1870 to 1882. As 
a result of this meeting Dr. Ruffner prepared and had pre- 
sented to the Legislature a report which pointed out the defects 
of the school system of the State and suggested a remedy. The 
remedy proposed was state taxation, a state board of educa- 
tion, a state superintendent, county and local organization and 
supervision, normal schools and provisions for training teachers, 
public libraries, and other features of an advanced school system. 
The chief weakness of the plan appeared in its failure to leave 
out the weakening principle of Virginia's ante-bellum educa- 
tional scheme ; the schools were to be supported by taxation, but 
the local school officers were to designate the families most worthy 
of aid.^ About the same time a convention was held in Rich- 
mond and was attended by more than one hundred delegates, 
among whom were several members of the Legislature. The 
meeting recommended and adopted a plan for a district free- 
school system, similar to that attempted in 1829, and prepared 
a memorial to the Legislature and an address to the people. 
A bill based on the plan proposed was passed by the House, 
but rejected by the Senate. 

In 1845 another convention met in Richmond, presented a 
memorial to the Legislature, and a local committee was appointed 
to watch its effect on that body. The result was a report of 
the legislative committee on education, which declared that the 
"present plan had both failed of its ends and is condemned 
on public principles." The committee suggested a plan which 
promised to serve as a "nucleus for further reforms." The plan 
proposed a state superintendent, a transfer of the appointment 
of county commissioners from the county courts to the people, 
taxation, a rate bill on all (except the poor) for school support, 
and provisions for training teachers. 

Largely as a result of this report the laws on the subject of 
education were amended and somewhat improved in 1846, though 
the weakening element of charity still persisted. The local courts 

1 Journal of the House of Delegates, 1841-1842, Document 7. 



2o8 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

were given authority to lay off their counties or corporations and 
to appoint county commissioners who were to elect county superin- 
tendents. These officers were to have control of the county 
systems and to handle the school finances, receiving as their com- 
pensation for such services 2><^ per cent on all amounts actually 
expended for educational purposes. The commissioners were to 
see to the education of indigent children and enter with the teach- 
ers in their localities such number of such children as their county 
quota of the literary fund would allow, paying for their tuition 
as usual. The other provisions of the act were similar to previous 
educational legislation in the State. However, if the plan pro- 
vided by this act failed to meet the wants or approval of any com- 
munity, then the county courts, on petition of one fourth of the 
legal voters of the county, could order an election on the ques- 
tion of district free schools, two thirds of the legal voters being 
necessary to carry such an election. 

At the same time another act was passed which gave the 
county courts authority to order an election on the subject 
of free district schools on petition of one third of the qualified 
voters, and a vote of two thirds of the legal voters was required 
to carry the election. The schools established uiider the provi- 
sions of this act were to be open free to all white children above 
the age of six years and were to give instruction in reading, 
writing, and arithmetic, ''and (where it is practicable) English 
grammar, geography, history (especially that of the State of 
Virginia and of the United States), and the elements of physical 
science, and such other and higher branches as the school com- 
missioners may direct." The district trustees were to provide 
the building and elect the teachers ; the expenses, including the 
teacher's salary were to be paid "by a uniform rate of increased 
taxation" upon the inhabitants of the county in addition to 
the county's quota from the income of the literary fund. Towns 
could adopt the system separate from the county, and after 
a year's trial any county or town could reject it by a ma- 
jority vote. This law seemed an improvement, and the plan 



ATTEMPTS AT REFORM 209 

which it provided would have changed the educational condition 
of the State had it been mandatory on the counties. But it was 
left optional with the counties to adopt or reject the plan pro- 
posed, and, like the act of 1796, the law of 1846 failed of its 
purpose. During the next few years slight changes were made 
in the legislation of 1846, but they produced but little practical 
improvement. 

By 1847 the inconvenience of so many varying legislative 
provisions for the same object was apparent. Under the law of 
the State any county could select "any district system of schools 
which may have been adopted by any county of this common- 
wealth, or which may have been previously passed into a law by 
the General Assembly." The plan formulated in 18 18 for edu- 
cating the poor was still the plan most generally followed in the 
State, and this continued to be followed until the Civil War. As 
for the so-called district free-school plan, attempted first in 1829 
and amended in the forties, this was partially adopted in only a 
few counties and never proved very successful in any. The plan 
ot 1829 seems to have been more or less successful in Washington 
County for a few years, but it was soon abandoned in the other 
counties where it was tried. However, by legislation of 1846 a cer- 
tain slight stimulus was given to the district free-school system, 
which continued until the war. It was partially adopted in per- 
haps a dozen counties and three or four towns, but it was never 
very popular. Its chief we^piess was its lack of mandatory provi- 
sions for taxation for sclm)l support. Lack of funds, however, 
was not the only obstacle in the way of its general introduction ; 
sparsity of population also operated against the practicability of 
the system. 

Slight educational improvement was made in Virginia in the 
fifties, and in the closing years of that decade sentiment in favor 
of increased educational opportunity began to show itself. With 
the revision of the constitution in 185 1 provision was made for 
applying one half of the capitation taxes "to the purposes of 
education in primary and free schools." This was the first time 



210 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

the constitution of the State had anything to say about edu- 
cation. In that year the permanent available capital of the 
literary fund amounted to $1,571,000, with an income of $101,000, 
and the annual appropriation for school purposes was increased 
al that time from $45,000 to $75,000. The friends of schools 
believed that with the additional revenue from the capitation 
taxes new energy would be put into the educational work of the 
State, which was described as "inefficient and defective." In 
1853 the Legislature appropriated to education all the capita- 
tion taxes, which were expected to amount to about $52,000. 
This and the annual appropriation of $75,000 from the literary 
fund promised increased facilities for the instruction of a large but 
worthy class of children. 

The educational sentiment of this period was perhaps best 
reflected in the proceedings of two sessions of the Virginia Edu- 
cational Convention held in Richmond in 1856 and 1857, and 
representing the interests of the academies and colleges of the 
State. The first meeting was held in July, 1856, and committees 
were appointed to study the educational condition of the State 
and to report at another meeting which was to be held the fol- 
lowing year. The second convention assembled in August, 1857, 
and the reports of these committees were heard. Chief among 
these was the report from the committee on the literary fund. 

This committee reported that the revenue from this fund had 
been applied "exclusively to the poor children," except where the 
district free-school system had been adopted, and where there 
was a surplus beyond the actual needs of the poor, when the 
county authorities could transfer such surplus to any incorporated 
college or academy in their counties. Such transfers were not 
frequently made, however, if at all. The report said that the 
benefits derived from the principal distribution of the fund were 
very "problematical" and pointed out that the school endowment 
was the property of all the people: 

We therefore meet at once a moral question. Is it right to take the 
property of the many and bestow it exclusively on the few? . . . 



ATTEMPTS AT REFORM 2ii 

They are the privileged class, the aristocracy of poverty. Now is it 
right to exclude from all the benefits of the Uterary fund all the 
children of this glorious old commonwealth, except those who put in 
the plea of rags and dirt? . . . Can this injustice and partiality benefit 
the poor children? Is it a law of humanity, that to Hft up, you must 
first degrade, that to elevate the soul and spirit of a child, you must 
first make him a pubHc pauper? . . . Has the pauper system of edu- 
cation diminished the number of your intellectual paupers ? Or is it, 
like every other system of legally supported pauperism, a fire that 
feeds itself? 

The partial manner of distribution was not the only criti- 
cism of the fund and its operation. The practice of paying 
teachers from three to six cents a day for each poor child taught 
was vicious in its effects and tended to dwarf rather than to liber- 
alize the spirit of teacher, child, and parent. The management 
of the fund was also criticized, and Governor Henry A. Wise 
was requested to furnish the convention with any information 
which he had concerning the fund and its management. The 
governor stated at the outset, in complying with the request, that 
the law applying the capitation taxes to education had not been 
observed, in that this source of school support had not been 
promptly applied to the literary fund. As a result, between 
$100,000 and $150,000 had accumulated and was not being used 
for purposes of education. Moreover, fully one fifth of the capital 
of the literary fund had been reported lost or given away on ac- 
count of poor investments, poor management, and debts due from 
defaulting officers ; and in addition to this loss, loans to institu- 
tions amounting to $223,000 had been released by unconstitutional 
legislative action. Besides, there were constant accumulations in 
the treasury which should have been invested, and under the 
method used it was almost impossible to prevent surpluses from 
lying idle in the hands of the county superintendents. Some of 
the facts which Governor Wise gave have a certain interest in 
this connection. 

The executive pointed out that of the total funds available 
for education between the years 1852 and 1856, inclusive, nearly 



212 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

40 per cent was not applied to that purpose. The amounts of 
school money continuously in the hands of the superintendents 
of schools were more than one third of the total amount paid by 
them for educational purposes. On the county quotas which the 
superintendents drew at the beginning of the year they received 
a commission of 5 per cent and also had continuous use of at 
least one third of the entire quota without any interest charge. 
At the current rate of interest this amount was not an inconsider- 
able sum. During the years under consideration the average 
annual sum expended by the superintendents was more than 
$159,000 and the average annual balance left in their hands 
was above $52,000; on these sums they received a commission 
of 5 per cent and had the use of the $52,000 without any interest 
charge. The governor also pointed out that the practice of using 
for private purposes the unexpended balances of the school quotas 
had grown very common among the county superintendents, 
who did not think it wrong or illegal to use the funds in this man- 
ner rather than have them idle. Although fully one third of the 
county quotas was regularly left in the hands of these officers 
at the end of each school year, it was customary to draw in 
advance the full quota apportioned to the county. 

Notes in bank are paid with these quotas. Orders, for example, are 
often sent to Richmond to draw the county quotas, and accompanying 
these are orders to pay out of the amounts various private bills and 
debts in this very city. . . . This is common, and yet not considered 
wrong or illegal. 

Continuing, the governor said : 

The truth is that the pauper children do not partake of the bounty in 
any considerable proportion at all. The poor little girls without fly-flap 
bonnets and the little shoeless boys do not go to school, because the 
shame of poverty keeps them away from that charity which points its 
finger at their indigence. The fact is that the larger portion of parents 
whose children take the bounty, are those who are able to pay for 
tuition. The poor are driven away from the fund, and it is used as a 



ATTEMPTS AT REFORM 213 

mere auxiliary for those who have enough of their own to educate their 
children ; and the appHcation of the fund in the present mode has, in 
many instances, the injurious effect of relaxing their efforts to es- 
tablish and keep up efificient schools. The pretext then that this bread 
is needed to feed the poor, is but the art of misapplying the funds for 
education. The poor are not fed by it at all, and those for whom it 
is applied do not obtain much more than half the amount which the 
State provides. ... I repeat, then, that a large amount of our means 
is withheld. That another large amount is diverted from the purposes 
fixed by the constitution and the law. That another large amount is 
permitted to remain idle in the hands of fiduciaries, or they are using 
a portion of the public funds for private purposes, without interest or 
other consideration. That the cost of disbursing the amount which is 
expended is too great,^ and is greater than the law allows. That this 
is a temptation to a breach of trust, and to keep up the abuses of the 
system and the misappHcation of the funds for education. . . . That 
the whole present system is calculated to shame the poor and to relax 
those who have means among the people, and is, to use the lightest 
phrase, a "sink pocket" to the public treasury. . . . Whether we 
mean, then, to make bad scholars or good teachers, the present system 
must be reformed. We must husband our capital of the hterary fund 
better ; we must collect its income, guard it more sacredly, keep its 
accounts more strictly, apply more of it to educational purposes, and 
apply it in the right way. 

Such criticisms as these made the system appear very defec- 
tive. Governor Wise was of the opinion that ''it was originally 
devised and intended to defeat Mr. Jefferson's large and lilperal 
plan of education," Attention therefore turned toward three 
questions of reform which the convention and the governor con- 
sidered : the complete abolition of the principle of charity which 
the system had always contained ; the establishment of expert 
supervision and instruction ; and the creation of an affiliated sys- 
tem of schools providing for primary education, a system of 
higher schools, and for the training of teachers. On these sug- 
gested reforms a thoroughgoing plan was proposed to supersede 
the system then in operation and to correlate all educational 

iThe governor showed that it cost 84 per cent to administer the fund. 



214 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

agencies in the State under the supervision of the University. 
The plan included primary schools for the children between the 
ages of seven and twelve, higher primary schools for the children 
between twelve and sixteen, twelve colleges for the pupils above 
the ages of sixteen who were ''lit for college, institute, and uni- 
versity," a medical college, a military institute, agricultural 
schools, and a university. The plan proposed to bring every small 
child within three miles of a primary school and every child be- 
tween twelve and sixteen years of age within six miles of a high 
school. To complete the scheme three new colleges and schools 
for "instruction in all the applied sciences of agriculture" 
were to be established. Ignorance of agriculture, Governor Wise 
said, had ruined more men in Virginia than "any other cause 
known to me, except brandy, fox-hounds and horse-racing." 

Practically all the suggestions and recommendations made by 
these conventions were incorporated in a series of resolutions 
which were to be sent to the next session of the Legislature. 
Chief among the resolutions was the following: "That the fea- 
ture of charity to paupers in a system of public instruction ought 
to be abolished as odious to the people and degrading to the 
pupils." Steps were also taken to organize a teacher's associa- 
tion, and the evils resulting from the premature admission of 
students to the colleges and university of the State and the 
"ignorance and hopeless degradation" of infant operatives em- 
ployed in cotton and woolen factories were also discussed. 
A memorial embodying the broad educational views of the con- 
ventions was prepared to be presented to the Legislature, and 
President William A. Smith of Randolph-Macon College was 
requested to appear before the Legislature in behalf of improved 
educational opportunity for the children of the State. 

In spite of this manifestation of interest, however, practically 
nothing was achieved for substantial improvement in education 
during the closing years of the ante-bellum period. The president 
and directors of the literary fund, consisting of certain state 
officers, continued to act as the administrative authority of public 



ATTEMPTS AT REFORM 215 

education in the State. The duties of these officers extended 
only to the investment and distribution of the revenue from this 
source. Beyond these duties the hterary board had no author- 
ity in the various details of educational administration, which 
were left in large part to local county school commissioners who 
were appointed by the county courts and varied in number 
from two to thirty-two. The commissioners sought out the poor 
children of the community and placed them under the instruction 
of available teachers, who received from three to six cents a day 
for each child taught. The commissioners were required to visit 
the schools in which the beneficiaries of the literary fund were 
taught, but in this duty they were usually negligent. The sup- 
port of schools was admittedly inadequate to the needs of the 
State ; the plan lacked supervision and administration ; there was 
throughout the period a strong prejudice against the plan, with its 
pronounced class distinctions, and there was much carelessness on 
the part of those who were intrusted with the few details called 
for by the school law. Despite all these defects and obstacles, 
however, the plan adopted in 18 18 and the movement in 1829 
and in the forties for district free schools served to give some 
education to thousands of children who would otherwise have 
been entirely neglected. In i860 the State appropriated $80,000 
from the income of the literary fund, and nearly fifty thousand 
poor children were reported as having attended school an average 
of seventy-seven days in 3197 primary schools. The amount spent 
for their tuition and books and for the compensation of school 
officials was $190,000. 

Like Virginia, South Carolina also held back from establishing 
an adequate system of schools before the Civil War. The act 
passed in 181 1 remained the basis of practically all that was 
attempted in that State before i860, although supplemental leg- 
islation was enacted in 1835. The conditions which there pre- 
vented a response to the educational revival of the second quarter 
of the nineteenth century were not unlike those which retarded 
educational progress in Virginia during the same period. 



2i6 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

The operation of the system set up in South Carolina in 1811 
began clumsily, but with some promise of success. The reports 
to the Legislature for 181 2 showed that less than two hundred 
schools with an enrollment of about forty-two hundred children 
had been established, maintained, or aided in that year by the 
legislative bounty. In his message to the Legislature that year 
Governor Middleton regretted that the free-school plan had 
met with such partial encouragement and success and suggested 
additional regulations and improvements for making the under- 
taking more successful. The following year a part of the Legis- 
ture was in doubt as to the practical operation of the law and 
sought to abolish the system inaugurated two years before. But 
for the plea of representatives from Charleston the plan would 
probably have been abandoned in its infancy. 

In November, 18 15, Governor David R. Williams believed 
that the lack of gratifying progress of the system was due to 
inexperience in its management and that with experience both 
the plan and its administration would be improved. He suggested 
that the commissioners be empowered to place poor children in 
school without the consent of those parents who were both un- 
willing and unable to educate them, and that a certain number of 
the more intellectually promising of such children be selected " as 
fit subjects for a course of collegiate training."^ In 18 16 the same 
executive urged the establishment of a permanent public endow- 
ment for school support and that certain lands acquired by nego- 
tiations with the Cherokee Indians be used as a nucleus of such 
a fund. Governor Andrew Pickens, in his message to the Legisla- 
ture in 181 7, said that the school law was not "sufficiently 
precise" and that abuses had crept in which demanded legis- 
lative correction. The recommendations of the various gover- 
nors frequently appeared, but with varying degrees of urgency; 
while the annual legislative committee, appointed to examine the 
school commissioners' reports, too frequently damned the entire 

^Here again may be seen the influence of Jefferson's early school plan in 
Virginia. 



ATTEMPTS AT REFORM 217 

system by praising it faintly. Occasionally, however, this com- 
mittee loudly praised the plan, as was the case in 1822, when it 
was declared that the system appeared not only to have met "the 
approbation of the citizens throughout the State" but to have 
''exceeded the most sanguine expectations of its original found- 
ers." Governor Thomas Bennett at that time admired the liber- 
ality of the Legislature, but deplored the misapplication of its 
bounty. He believed that the entire system should be cautiously 
examined, its imperfections ascertained and, as far as practicable, a 
remedy applied. His recommendations to the Legislature included 
the following : 

While, therefore, I earnestly recommend the appointment of com- 
missioners to examine the free-school system and detail to you minutely 
all errors existing in its organization or administration, permit me with 
deference to point out what I conceive to be radical imperfections. 
The distribution of the schools over the State is erroneously predicated 
on the estimate of taxation and population ; hence schools are located 
in districts where the sums appropriated are more than sufficient for 
the education of those who are the particular objects of legislative 
care ; while other and more populous districts are scarcely sensible of 
the benefits conferred. The location of the schools should depend 
wholly on the population to be instructed, and should be established 
on principles adequate to the object ; if insufficient it will operate to 
produce hostility to the system', and as a waste of the sums appro- 
priated. To effect this judiciously, I would suggest the appointment 
of a commissioner of the school fund, in whose judgment and discre- 
tion impHcit confidence may be reposed whose duty it should be to 
visit every school and report their situation, annually to the Legislature. 
Another conspicuous error in the system, is the admission into the 
schools, free of any charge, of children whose parents are capable of 
procuring their instruction on other terms. The bounty of the State 
should not be permitted to paralyze individual exertion. The im- 
mediate effect of permitting the children of the rich to avail them- 
selves of instruction at the free schools, is to deprive the State of 
those contributions which would extend their usefulness and respect- 
ability ; and the valuable seminaries which private munificence would 
otherwise cherish. The State has, if not a qualified property, a deep 
interest in every child, and with parental soHcitude, should enforce by 



2i8 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

salutary enactments, the duty of cultivating their minds, on every 
parent who would resist the injunctions of moral obligation, or the 
suggestions of natural affection, by rearing their offspring in ignorance 
and vice. 

During the next twelve years the several governors urged 
revisions of the school law and reforms of the system, which 
was believed to be "liable to essential abuses." But the Legisla- 
ture remained inactive. In 1835 Governor George McDuffie com- 
mended the Legislature for its aid to the South Carolina College, 
but he rebuked that body for its constant neglect of the primary 
schools, in which "a great part of the community obtain all the 
instruction they ever receive at schools." Continuing, he said: 

How vitally important then are these humble institutions in a com- 
munity where the sovereign power of the State is not only recognized 
as residing in the body of the people, but is habitually exercised by 
them in the periodical election of their public functionaries ? The deep 
importance of popular education to such a community is universally 
admitted ; but we are unfortunately too prone, in conformity with our 
American habits, to rest satisfied with proclaiming the measures of 
speculative truth, without taking steps to have them exemplified by 
measures of practical wisdom. In no country is the necessity of popu- 
lar education so often proclaimed, and in none are the schools of 
elementary instruction more deplorably neglected. They are entirely 
without organization, superintendence," or inspection of any kind, gen- 
eral or local, public or private. To the reproach of our republican insti- 
tutions, it must be admitted, that some of the monarchies of Europe 
have manifested a more enlightened zeal in the cause of popular 
education, than has been exhibited in South Carolina. . . . 

It is mortifying to reflect, that not one in twenty of those instruc- 
tors, who have charge of our primary schools, and are thus invested 
with the sacred ofifice of forming the minds of our children could stand 
the scrutiny through which every schoolmaster in Prussia must pass, 
before he is permitted to perform the very lowest functions of elemen- 
tary instruction. A radical reform in this department of popular 
instruction is imperiously demanded by every consideration of patriot- 
ism, and although this salutary work must principally depend upon 
the exertions of individuals and local associations, the Legislature might 
give aid and direction to the popular efforts, by uniting the poor 



ATTEMPTS AT REFORM 219 

schools with the common primary schools of the county, and increasing 
to a small extent the appropriation for the education of the poor. It 
seems to be generally admitted, that this charitable fund has been 
productive of very httle public benefit, and has in fact been perverted, 
in many instances, into a provision for the support of indigent and 
incompetent schoolmasters. If all the judicial districts were divided 
into school districts of suitable dimensions, for primary schools, each 
of these selecting an intelligent school committee to superintend the 
business of primary education within its hmits, the commissioners of 
the poor schools might be directed to apply a certain portion of the 
fund entrusted to their management, to the support of these schools, 
in such a way, and upon such conditions, as would increase the com- 
pensation, and at the same time insure the competency of the 
schoolmasters. 

These suggestions are thrown out, rather as indicating what ought to 
be done, and to draw your attention to the subject of elementary 
instruction, than with the view of pointing out the specific plan by 
which it may be promoted. I am fully aware, that any reform in the 
system of primary schools to be extensively beneficial, must originate 
with the people, and be carried into execution by them in their respec- 
tive vicinities. There is no field of exertion, public or private, in which 
the duties of the parent and the patriot can be so usefully and so 
honorably blended, as in the improvement, superintendence, and 
inspection of the primary schools ; and it is to be hoped that every 
enlightened citizen will regard himself as a trustee of these elementary 
seminaries, and a guardian of the children educated in them. 

One result of Governor McDuffie's argument in behalf of 
schools was the passage in 1835 of an act supplementary to the 
law of 181 1. Its chief feature was a provision which was in- 
tended to make the earlier law more effective by prescribing 
penalties for negligence on the part of the school officials. Like 
the original act, however, it was full of defects and finally proved 
ineffective. The same governor urged the same subject the follow- 
ing year, calling the schools "the nurseries of freemen," but he 
was unable to induce legislative remedy for a condition gen- 
erally considered unwholesome. In 1837 Governor Pierce M. But- 
ler feared that the free-school system had not "fully answered 
the benevolent ends contemplated," and the following year he 



220 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

reiterated the statement and urged the appointment of a legis- 
lative committee to study the subject and to make a report. 

In compliance with the governor's request the Legislature ap- 
pointed forty-six commissioners, representing every election dis- 
trict in the State, to examine and revise the free-school system and 
to make individual reports of any amendments to the school law 
or alterations in the administration of the system which they 
deemed needful. Twenty-six of the commissioners performed the 
duty with commendable zeal and some ability ; and obeying a 
legislative resolution. Governor Patrick Noble in 1839 placed 
their reports in the hands of a special commission composed of 
Professors Stephen Elliott and James H. Thornwell, of South 
Carolina College, who were requested to study the reports and to 
devise and report to the Legislature an improved school plan. 
Among other things the plan which they reported called for a 
state superintendent of schools, provisions for training teachers, 
larger legislative appropriation for free-school purposes, and a 
sounder and more equitable basis for its distribution. The report 
reflected popular opinion concerning the system inaugurated in 
181 1 and enumerated its defects. It pointed out that regular re- 
turns from the school officials had been made in only five years 
and that in one year thirty-one of the forty-four districts failed 
to report. Moreover, the amount of money spent seemed to bear 
no satisfactory relation to the results obtained. In 18 12 the sum 
of $1 was expended for every child instructed, but seven years 
later the cost was Si 6 for each child. Irregularity and inequality 
in the distribution of the funds appropriated by the Legislature 
were other evils which rendered the system ineffective. The av- 
erage annual appropriation from the Legislature between 181 1 and 
1839 was $37,000, while the average annual attendance was only 
about six thousand. One of the commissioners declared "there is 
nothing systematic in the whole scheme but the annual appropria- 
tion for its support." 

Nothing resulted from this apparent evidence of interest, and 
although the subject of education continued to be urged, no 



ATTEMPTS AT REFORM 221 

practical reforms were made. In 1845 the governor recommended 
a state superintendent as a step in the program of reform, but the 
legislative committee, to whom that part of the executive message 
was referred, returned the following answer: 

Impressed by the sound views presented in the message, and concur- 
ring in these views almost entirely, the committee yet feel constrained 
by both the condition of the treasury, and the present circumstances 
of the people, to withhold the legislation which they otherwise would 
have proposed for your deliberation. 

Two other evidences of educational interest appeared about 
this time. One of these was in the action of the State Agricultural 
Society of South Carolina in 1846, and the other was the report 
of a legislative committee the following year. The Agricultural 
Society appointed a committee to report on the "defects of the 
present school system, and the changes necessary to insure the 
accomplishment of the end for which it was established," and 
the matter was referred to Colonel R. E. W. Allston, who re- 
ported in 1847. His analysis of the system established in 181 1 
pointed out four serious defects which made the plan lame and 
imperfect : the lack of a superintending head, of adequate support, 
of provisions for training teachers, and of provisions for furnish- 
ing the schools with books. The report considered the plan a 
failure and especially urged the appointment of a superintendent 
and the enactment of provisions for local taxation and for the 
preparation of teachers by a normal school "with a model school 
attached." It also pointed out that the adult white illiterates 
of the State numbered 20,000 and that there were 70,000 people 
in the State between five and twenty years of age who were not 
.in school. None of the remedies could be effectually applied, how- 
ever, "until the first great requisition shall have been satisfied 
by the appointment of a superintendent, — an active, intelligent, 
discreet and efficient officer." 

About the same time a committee of five was appointed in the 
Legislature to make a report concerning education in the State. 



222 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

As chairman of the committee Henry Sumner prepared and pre- 
sented a very comprehensive and searching statement of actual 
educational conditions which coincided with the report of the 
State Agricultural Society and of all candid treatments of the 
subject. One part of the report stated: 

Should not the State do more, much more than she has ever done for 
the cause of education among the poor, and among the people at large ? 
It was declared, on the floor of this hall, during the last session of this 
body, that the free-school system was a failure, and no one contradicted 
it : It seemed to be conceded by all. . . . Reports on the free-school 
system, made at the session of 1839, have been before the people ever 
since without attracting one tithe of the attention which their impor- 
tance demands. Let any dispassionate and candid individual examine 
these reports, and however much he may be disposed to laud this 
State, he will there find enough to make him blush for the neglect of 
the all-important cause of education. He will then see that resolution 
after resolution has been passed, approving the free-school system, 
and recommending that something be done to diffuse a greater amount 
of knowledge among the children in the State : and that committees 
were appointed, at different times, to report on this subject ; yet 
nothing was done until the year 1839. Here this matter rested until 
the last session and we have stated what was then done.^ Shall this also 
terminate, as almost all the other appointments, since the act of 181 1, 
as splendid nothings? Is there not something due to the people of the 
State from the State ? If the State has the right (as we believe she un- 
questionably has) to endow a college and to make annual appropriations 
for its support, should she not make a more liberal provision than she 
has yet done, for the purpose of diffusing the blessings of education 
among the people at large? Means should be adopted to secure these 
blessings to the people ; for in this very thing, all the people, learned 
and ignorant, rich and poor, are equally and deeply interested. 

The Sumner report also advocated and urged the appointment 
of a superintendent and the creation of a central board of educa- 
tion; the formulation of a well-ordered course of study for the 

lAt that time an increase of the annual appropriation for schools was 
proposed, and the discussion which grew out of the subject led to the 
appointment of the Sumner committee. 



ATTEMPTS AT REFORM 223 

schools ; and a substantial increase of the school funds by legisla- 
tive appropriation and taxation, and a remodeling of the system 
and a distribution of the funds on the basis of white population 
rather than on the basis of legislative representation. Sumner 
emphasized the inequality of the method of distribution followed 
in the State at that time. Spartanburg District had five members 
in the House of Representatives and received $1500 of the school 
funds ; St. Phillip's and St. Michael's had seventeen representa- 
tives and received $5100 of the funds. But Spartanburg District 
had more voters than St. Phillip's and St. Michael's. In conclu- 
sion the report said : 

Many considerations press upon the State to arouse her from her 
lethargy, from her death-like torpor. If she does not awake from this 
torpor, she will "see men as trees walking," so far have her sister 
States of this Confederacy outstripped her in this career of glory. We 
have been talking and they have been acting. Let the State resolve to 
do the work, set about in good earnest, and the difficulties that now 
throng our way will yield to perseverance, and South Carolina will 
at last, though not too late, act worthy of her ancient dignity and 
honor. . . . There is scarce a State in the Union, in which so great 
apathy exists on the subject of the education of the people, as in the 
State of South Carolina. The States immediately adjoining us outstrip 
us in this benevolent and great work of diffusing knowledge among the 
people. South Carolina started well, but she has overlooked the im- 
portance of the work, and has lagged behind. Shall she continue in 
this state of Hstlessness and indifference to the wants of her children? 
She is a mother ; and shall she withhold that which will satisfy these 
wants? Generous to a fault, she will not, cannot, when she sees that 
it is to her interest and her good that knowledge should be diffused 
among her people, and that the children in her borders should be made 
the recipients of her bounty. . . . Does the patriot desire that the 
institutions of our government should be perpetual ? He ought to know 
that, without intelligence and virtue, such a government as ours cannot 
exist ; for these are the main pillars, the foundation stones of the fabric 
of our government. Without intelligence to know our rights, and vir- 
tue to preserve them in their purity, demagogism may deceive the 
people under the fairest pretences of doing good, and betray the trust 
reposed ; corruption will then prevail, and the security and liberty of 



2 24 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

the people will be lost. But, on the other hand, with intelligence and 
virtue as safeguards, the people will be watchful of their rights, and 
the demagogue, though perhaps successful for a time, will be defeated 
in his attempts to deceive. Morality and good order may be expected 
from dissemination of correct principles, and our State will stand 
redeemed from the shame of being so backward in the promotion of a 
cause which promises so much good ; . . . Shall the people suffer for 
lack of knowledge ? Let the State of South Carolina answer I Shall 
the wants of the people be satisfied? Then let the legislature do 
their duty ! 

Such appeals, however, availed little and entirely failed in 
the effort to move the Legislature to action. When the Sumner 
report was made Governor Johnson said the school system of the 
State was "the very worst that can be conceived, and calls loudly 
for improvement." Governor W. B. Seabrook in 1850 held the 
same opinion. He had issued a circular to the school commis- 
sioners asking certain questions concerning the system, and from 
the answers received he learned that the plan was not successful 
except in densely settled communities, where the funds were made 
ample by combining the appropriation from the State with contri- 
butions from other sources, and that the teachers were poorly- 
paid and generally "unqualified for their stations." The same 
governor had suggested the calling of an educational convention 
to meet at Columbia to consider the subject of schools, the prepa- 
ration at home of books to be used in the schools, and other simi- 
lar subjects. The convention was held, and "men distinguished 
for talent, character, and usefulness" took part in the proceedings 
and recommended practically the same plan for schools as that of 
the Sumner report and the message of Governor Seabrook. The 
only practical result or forward step which came from all this 
agitation of the subject, however, was the increase of the annual 
legislative appropriation from $37,000 to $74,000, and this was 
gained by a close vote and after a hard legislative fight in 1852. 

With the exception of the increase of the state appropriation 
for free-school support no further legislative action was taken for 



ATTEMPTS AT REFORM 225 

educational improvement before the Civil War. But the leaders 
did not abandon hope. In 1855 Governor Adams said, addressing 
the Legislature: 

The free-school system will receive at your hands that consideration 
which its importance demands. Its results have fallen so far short of 
its object that it may be pronounced a failure. Its defects have been 
long felt, and yet nothing has been done except to double the sum of 
money to be wasted under a bad system. It requires thorough and 
entire reformation. It is unfortunate that the end which was evidently 
contemplated by the act of 181 1 has been abandoned, and that what 
was evidently intended to introduce a general system of common 
schools has been perverted to the exclusive education of paupers. In 
my judgment we should return to the poHcy of 181 1, and seek to 
inaugurate a system which, in its ultimate development, should bring 
the means of education within the reach of every family in the State. 

It is interesting to note at this point that Governor Adams 
advocated a plan for the different degrees of education very simi- 
lar to that suggested by Governor Wise and the convention in 
Richmond in 1857. It is also of interest that the South Carolina 
executive criticized the method of distributing the legislative 
appropriation just as the Virginia governor in 1857 criticized the 
management of the literary fund in his State. Governor Adams 
said that if South Carolina should decline to adopt the general 
system which he advocated and should continue to restrict its 
appropriation to the indigent, then the principle on which the 
legislative appropriation was distributed should be changed. He 
said that by that principle education was denied to one half the 
population of the State. Continuing, he said: 

The other half who constitute our political vitaHty, are unequally 
distributed over the State ; and it is this portion of our population 
whom it is our duty and our poHcy to educate. The distribution should 
be in proportion to white population. If the State undertakes to 
raise a fund to educate the poor, it should be spent where it is most 
needed. Under the present method, more money is allowed in one 
section for the education of five or six children, than in another for 



226 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

ten or a dozen. In a matter of such vital importance to the State, 
district and parish lines should be disregarded. Whether we live in 
the mountains or on the seaboard, in the midst of light or surrounded 
by ignorance, we are all equally interested in the noble work, and 
into whatever benighted part of the State the rays of knowledge can 
be made to penetrate, we should feel as citizens of the same State, 
enjoying one renown, and linked to one destiny, that the partial bless- 
ing is the general good. 

Governor Adams advocated the election of a state superin- 
tendent and provisions for other features of an improved school 
system. "Make at least this effort," he begged, ''and you will 
at least feel conscious of having done your duty, and the public 
anxiety on the subject will be quieted." This urging had no effect 
on the Legislature, however, whose educational committee deemed 
it "inexpedient to propose any further legislation on the subject 
at present." The movement for reform continued to be agitated, 
however, until the Civil War, but reform never came. In i860 the 
report of the legislative committee on education was similar to 
its reports thirty years before. It pointed out that the calcula- 
tions of the free-school commissioners had been verified and found 
substantially correct, though some were deficient in form and 
others were received late. It was also noted that in some instances 
the amount expended for tuition had not reached the appropria- 
tion and that in others it had exceeded the appropriation. The 
report noted that although the method of distributing the appro- 
priation, on the basis of representation in the popular branch 
of the Legislature, "may not in some respects conform to princi- 
ple and exact equity, your committee are of opinion that this 
rule of distribution should be adhered to, as it approximates 
equality, probably as nearly as possible, and has been established 
and acted upon for a series of years." ^ 

Thus the plan provided for in 181 1 continued practically un- 
changed throughout the ante-bellum period. The lack of any 
central authority and of systematic and uniform management 
and the lack of provisions for local enterprise or community 

1 Reports and Resolutions of i860, pp. 40, 41. 



ATTEMPTS AT REFORM 227 

cooperation were among its chief defects. Moreover, the system 
was defective in principle ; and the causes which principally 
obstructed improvement, in spite of frequent solicitude and exer- 
tions, were a mistaken spirit of economy and a division of opinion 
as to what should be the real object of the plan. Concerning the 
curriculum, methods of teaching, textbooks, qualifications of the 
teachers, and the physical equipment of the schools, there is but 
scanty information in the annual reports of the commissioners 
to the legislative committee. Finally, the defects of the plan 
were numerous, but it doubtless rescued many children from 
hopeless ignorance. Near the close of the ante-bellum period the 
following estimate was made of the system: 

Considered in the light of an adequate provision for the elementary 
education of the people, the free-school system is chargeable certainly 
with gross and serious defects ; considered as a scheme for the benefit 
of the poor and needy, it has just as certainly rescued thousands from 
the doom of hopeless ignorance, and been the first step in the ascent 
of others to honors, usefulness, and fame. It has let down a rope into 
the sinks of poverty by which a few gifted minds have been drawn up 
into the clear light and bracing air of learning, refinement and elegance. 
The ransom of these minds has been worth more than the whole 
amount appropriated by the commonwealth. Besides this, the free- 
school fund has been a blessing to the community at large in many 
neighborhoods, which were too thinly settled to support a teacher by 
their own contributions. The bounty of the State has eked out their 
deficiency, and kept up a good school where one could not otherwise 
have been maintained. In these respects the appropriation has not been 
in vain. It is the language of exaggeration, and not of truth and sober- 
ness, to condemn it wholesale, as an idle waste of the public money. It 
is something gained that there should be a standing confession of the 
obligation of the State to provide for popular instruction ; something 
that thousands,- to whom the book of knowledge would have been for- 
ever sealed, have been actually taught the rudiments of learning ; and 
something better still, that here and there, a few generous minds had 
had a fire kindled within them, which never ceased to burn, until they 
themselves became lights in the world. ^ 

iThe Free School System of South Carolina. Columbia, 1856. The 
author is not indicated. 



228 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

In Charleston, however, the plan provided in 1811 was more 
successful and made a slight improvement before 1850. There 
the free-school commissioners had worked with more than usual 
zeal and interest in behalf of schools. Legislative authority was 
given to commissioners to raise by taxation funds for erecting 
houses and for launching a general school system. The sum of 
$10,000 was thus raised, and the system was inaugurated in 
July, 1856, From that time until the Civil War Charleston had a 
creditable public-school system, adequately housed and properly 
superintended and taught, and with modest provisions for train- 
ing teachers. Many of the wealthy citizens of the community 
patronized the schools, and in this way prejudice against the 
public-school idea was more or less weakened. 
-^ It was noted in Chapter V that the act of 1823 in Tennessee 
marked the beginning of an earnest effort to provide a system of 
public schools for that State, but that the plan provided by that 
legislation was defective in that it was obviously designed pri- 
marily for the education of poor children. However, this law 
served to stimulate a better educational sentiment, expressed in the 
law of 1827, which consolidated all school funds into one fund for 
the encouragement and support of common schools, and in the law 
of 1830, which made provisions for a more advanced school plan 
for the State. 

The plan formulated by the law of 1830 seems to have been 
the germ of Tennessee's ante-bellum school system, and while it 
lacked central authority and machinery for enforcing its pro- 
visions, it undertook to get away from the pauper idea and to 
"induce universal attendance." Moreover, it undertook to pro- 
vide for free textbooks and looked also in the direction of com- 
pulsory attendance. The law was intended to encourage and to 
support schools, however, rather than to establish and maintain 
them, and there seems to have been no complete or effective organ- 
ization under this act. Up to that time the educational legislation 
of the State was largely financial in character, and the school 
funds were greatly decentralized and involved in the state bank, 



ATTEMPTS AT REFORM 229 

through which a large part of that means of school support was 
lost. Between 1830 and 1836 there was but little educational 
legislation enacted in the State. During that time, however, 
Tennessee had succeeded in adopting a constitution which, for 
the first time, gave attention to public education and a permanent 
public-school fund. 

The friends of education began in earnest soon after the adop- 
tion of the constitution in 1835, and in that year Governor Can- 
non recommended to the Legislature "the proper adaptation of 
measures to the existing state of society and habits of the people." 
He believed too much had been undertaken or more than could be 
achieved by the funds available, and he advocated a simple 
system which would place the means of education within reach 
''of that part of this rising generation who are entirely destitute 
and cannot obtain it from any other source." As a result of the 
agitation for increased educational opportunity the Legislature 
enacted another school law in 1836, which provided for a state 
board of education, a state superintendent of schools, and for 
centralizing all school funds. The plan thus provided was other- 
wise similar in detail to that formulated in 1830. Robert H. 
McEwen was elected superintendent of schools for a term of two 
years by a joint vote of the Legislature, at an annual salary of 
Si 500. The law gave him no authority to enforce the school 
laws or to stimulate and encourage educational advancement, but 
he was to serve the system as financial agent or treasurer of the 
school fund. McEwen's first report in October, 1837, dealt in the 
main with the condition of this fund, which he regarded as in- 
adequate for the needs of the State. The report recognized the 
actual educational condition of the State, and the superintendent 
proposed to encourage the schools which then existed and grad- 
ually to expand them into a general system. Up to that time 
the actual organization of the system had not begun, the meager 
supply of teachers had to come through the academies and col- 
leges, and individual effort and aid were necessary to support a 
working plan. 



230 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

In 1838 the common-school funds and the academy funds 
were invested in the state bank, which was created at that time, 
and from this investment the sum of $100,000 was to be appro- 
priated annually for free-school support under "the pledge of 
public faith and credit of the State." At the same time the duties 
of the state superintendent were defined and provisions made for 
a more adequate school system. The superintendent was to man- 
age and apportion the school funds on the basis of scholastic 
population. No apportionments were to be made to districts 
which neglected to report the required statistics nor to any 
which did not maintain a three months' school term each year. 
When the public funds were insufficient to maintain a school for 
three months the local school officers were empowered to levy rate 
bills on "parents, guardians, and others who may have derived 
benefit from the school by sending children thereto." However, 
these officers could exempt from the rate bills such poor persons 
"within the district as they shall think proper." 

In his report for 1838-1839 Superintendent McEwen estimated 
the scholastic population at 185,000 and noted that many dis- 
tricts had elected school trustees in accordance with the law and 
that many schools had been established "under highly flattering 
auspices." He had confidence in the success of the system and 
urged the attention of the local officers to the proper location 
and construction of schoolhouses, recommending that the school 
apportionment be used for a while for those purposes. He also 
recommended that the local trustees be empowered to examine the 
qualifications of teachers, that local taxation be substituted for the 
rate bills to supplement funds necessary for a three months' term, 
that provision be made for educational agents to create interest 
in schools by addresses and lectures on the subject, and he asked 
authority to issue an educational journal.^ 

McEwen was elected for a second term, beginning February, 
1838. But there was considerable discontent with his adminis- 
tration of the school funds between 1836 and 1838, and hints that 

1 Weeks, History of Public School Education in Tennessee, chap. iv. 



ATTEMPTS AT REFORM 231 

he had been guilty of fraud led to a thorough legislative investi- 
gation. In November, 1839, a joint committee was appointed 
consisting of five members from the House and three from the 
Senate, and the result of the investigation was a majority report 
that McEwen had defrauded the school fund of about $121,000.^ 
When McEwen's term expired in February, 1840, legal action 
was instituted against him and his securities, and, after a litiga- 
tion which continued for ten years and which wore the color of 
politics, final settlement was made with the defendants for the 
sum of $10,797.86.- Meantime the school fund was taken out 
of the hands of the state superintendent and placed under the 
control of the state bank. 

Robert P. Currin succeeded McEwen and served with great 
acceptability until November, 1841, when he resigned. On the 
same day that Currin's resignation was accepted Scott Perry 
was elected, after the legislative committee on education had 
reported unfavorably a proposal to abolish the office. Perry 
served as state superintendent until January, 1844, when, under 
a wave of economy and retrenchment, the office was abolished. 
The superintendent had been little more than a financial clerk, 
and the Legislature seemed unwilling to enlarge his authority or 
to expand his duties, which were now transferred to the state 
treasurer. Thus the wave of educational enthusiasm which began 
in the early thirties and continued for more than a decade was 
spent ; the defalcation of McEwen gave public education a decided 
setback, its advocates became discouraged, and from 1844 to 
1854 the poorly organized school system was little more than a 
name. The distributable share of the public funds to each dis- 
trict was small and was often applied to private schools, to which 
the people were greatly attached and which they viewed with 

1 Andrew Johnson was chairman of the committee from the House. A 
minority report was made by Felix Parker, a member of the committee 
from the House, which charged that the investigation was based on a 
"private maUce and poHtical prejudice spurred into activity ... by hungry 
expectants and party hangers on." 

^Journal of the House, 1843-1844, pp. 484-485. 



232 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

confidence. To such schools the public funds were distributed on 
the basis of enrollment and credited to the tuition of those who 
would accept the aid. In this way the public-school fund "came 
to be regarded as a sort of charity fund." 

In spite of the setback, however, educational interest appeared 
now and then, and improvement was occasionally urgently advo- 
cated. In April, 1847, an educational convention was held in 
Knoxville, with representatives from the counties of Greene, 
Cocke, Hawkins, Claiborne, Jefferson, Blount, Knox, Roane, 
Marion, and Anderson. A memorial to the Legislature was 
prepared which recommended property taxation for school sup- 
port, state supervision, county supervision, examination and certifi- 
cation of teachers, the publication of a monthly educational 
journal, and other means of improving school conditions. In No- 
vember of that year Governor Neil S. Brown, who was probably 
influenced by the memorial, indorsed the recommendation of the 
convention, especially urging taxation for education. This is said 
to be the ''first deliberate recommendation of taxation" for public 
schools ever made in Tennessee. Brown advocated a county levy 
for schools equal to the sum received from the State, a principle of 
school support which at that time was proving very successful in 
North Carolina. Many of the governor's recommendations were 
incorporated in a bill, but the proposed legislation failed. Three 
years later authority was given incorporated towns to levy prop- 
erty, privilege, and capitation taxes for educational purposes on 
the direction of a majority of the legal voters. This was the first 
action in the State for school taxes, and, while its immediate value 
was small, it marked a step in the right direction. 

In 1853 Governor Andrew Johnson said in his first message 
that the school system fell far short of the "imperative commands 
of the constitution" and that the Legislature and the people 
should "lay hold of this important subject with a strong and un- 
faltering hand." As a result an act was passed the following year 
which provided for a general capitation tax of twenty-five cents 
and two and one-half cents on the hundred dollars' valuation on 



ATTEMPTS AT REFORM 233 

the taxable property of the State, to be levied and collected, as 
other state taxes, for school purposes. The funds thus raised and 
the $100,000 which had been appropriated annually since 1839 
from the income of the literary fund were to be distributed to the 
various counties on the basis of their scholastic population. More- 
over, authority was given for a permissive county tax for schools, 
equal to the amount derivable from the state taxes, if legally 
ordered by the county courts or the people. By this legislation 
provisions were made for doubling the school funds. Provisions 
were later made for the examination and certification of teachers. 
In 1855-1856 a bill to establish a normal school to train teachers 
failed on the third reading on account of sectional jealousies in 
the State. 

With the act of 1854 the popular wave in favor of schools, 
which had so noticeably declined in the forties, reached its cul- 
mination during the ante-bellum period. From that time until 
the outbreak of the war much more was achieved for public- 
school education than had been achieved before that time. The 
provisions of the law were more or less advanced for the time and 
the region, but the actual operation of the system which the law 
supported was disappointing ; it was " an effort rather than an 
accomplishment, a promise rather than a fulfillment." The system 
lacked central supervisory authority, uniformity in the require- 
ments for teachers, in the course of study, and in textbooks, and 
bore no relation to the State except that of receiving a certain 
financial aid. Moreover, the funds thus expended were, before 
1854 at least, doubtless used to supplement and extend the terms 
of schools which were organized and conducted largely as private 
enterprises. In some of the larger towns, however, the correct prin- 
ciple of public educational support by public taxation was slowly 
being accepted at the outbreak of the war. Among them were 
Nashville, Memphis, and Clarksville, where creditable and more or 
less successful attempts were made for public schools before 1860/ 

Although North Carolina was the first Southern State to make 
constitutional provisions for schools, it was very slow to obey the 



234 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

mandate of that instrument. The state university was chartered 
in 1789 and organized six years later, and a literary fund was es- 
tablished in 1825 ; but with these exceptions there was no further 
public educational legislation until 1839, when the first school law 
of the State was enacted. The State was therefore late in adopting 
a school plan, but its educational progress between 1840 and i860 
was so steady that it "was able to place on the ground beyond 
dispute the best system of public instruction in the fourteen South- 
ern States east of the Mississippi previous to the outbreak of the 
Civil War."i 

This record of achievement, however, was not easily made. 
When the school system was first introduced the people were 
"tenacious of old habits, conservative to the point of stubborn- 
ness," and the experiment was novel for that region. The pos- 
session of a large permanent fund for school purposes seemed for 
a time to serve as a strong and practical argument against taxation 
for public education, there were few means for training the 
teachers necessary for the success of the system, and many of the 
"old field" teachers looked jealously on the new system and sought 
to obstruct its progress. However, the school law was revised 
and improved from time to time, and the system gradually won 
friends and finally gained a large place in the public esteem. 
In 1 84 1 considerable legislative improvement was made for the 
administration of the schools. Counties which had failed to 
adopt the school system in 1839 were by this act given opportu- 
nity to vote on the matter again, with the same privileges and 
rights allowed under the original act, and those which had voted 
against the plan were to have invested for them by the literary 
board whatever sums they would have been entitled to receive. 

Until 1853, when a state superintendent was appointed, the 
chief defect of the system was a lack of central supervision and 
control. Until that time the literary board was the executive 
head of the schools, and the system was left largely to county 

1 Report of the United States Commissioner of Education, 189S-1896, 

Vol. I, p. 282. 



ATTEMPTS AT REFORM 235 

officials who were not qualified by training or experience to guide 
the work wisely. Many other evils grew out of this fundamental 
defect. Returns of school statistics from the counties were irregu- 
lar and incomplete, there was no provision for special reports from 
the literary board, and official information on the subject of 
schools was lacking. Different counties developed different habits 
in the control of the school work, and there was naturally but 
little tendency toward a state system. The law was permissive, 
and the local courts were often negligent in their duty of levying 
the school taxes, largely because the law made it a discretionary 
rather than an imperative duty to do so. Moreover, the elemerit 
of charity was read into the public-school plan and noticeably 
hindered its development. Progress toward reform began to be 
made early, however, and criticisms of the organization, account- 
ability, and management of the system led to measures in the 
late forties which looked to the appointment of a state superin- 
tendent. Finally, the office of superintendent was created in 
1852, and Calvin H. Wiley was appointed to the position, which 
he filled with signal success until it was abolished in 1866. 

It was under Wiley's leadership that the educational revival in 
North Carolina was promoted, and the history of schools in that 
State from 1853 to the Civil War is in large measure a part of 
his own biography. He was already widely known and popular 
in the State when he came to the office, and his resourcefulness, 
versatility, and indefatigable toil in that position gave a remark- 
able impetus to educational interest. During his thirteen years 
of active official service he labored consistently for a complete 
reorganization and improvement of the educational agencies of 
the State. His first care was to arouse interest in the cause of 
schools, and this he did by tours through the State and by edu- 
cational campaigns which extended from the eastern to the ex- 
treme western counties. These trips were often made by private 
conveyance and at Wiley's personal expense; during his first 
year in office such campaigns called for fully half of his salary. 
Moreover, he did not always receive the encouragement which 



236 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

his sacrifices and the interest for which he worked deserved. But 
his courageous heart was never daunted, and a new educational 
life in the State began gradually to show itself ; hope was revived, 
new friends were made for the schools, and old friends "resolved 
to work with redoubled efforts." 

One of the chief obstacles which hindered public educational 
progress in North Carolina in the early fifties was the scarcity of 
teachers. From the outset, however, Wiley undertook to increase 
the number and to elevate the standard of teaching qualifications. 
He also sought to induce women to become teachers because 
"they are more patient, more easily win the affections of the 
young, and are more likely to mold to virtuous and refined senti- 
ments, the plastic nature of childhood." He also urged the for- 
mation of library associations for the State as a further means of 
improving the professional qualifications of the teachers, and his 
continued effort to encourage improvement in this part of the 
work finally led to the formation of the state teachers' association, 
which had a rather remarkable ante-bellum career. 

The most interesting and valuable means of training teachers 
for the public schools of the State during the fifties was provided 
through the efforts of Braxton Craven, president of the Normal 
College, in Randolph County, from which institution Trinity 
College, now located at Durham, later developed. In 1850 Cra- 
ven published in pamphlet form a comprehensive plan for train- 
ing teachers which was widely distributed and which created 
in the State a strong opinion in favor of legislative aid for this 
work. In the same year legislative authority was given his 
institution to issue certificates to its graduates as "sufficient 
evidence of ability to teach in any of the common schools of this 
State, without reexamination of the county committees." In 
1852 the governor and the state superintendent were made ex- 
officio president and secretary of the trustees, and from 1853 until 
1859 — when the name of the school was changed to Trinity Col- 
lege and all state relations severed — Normal College continued 
its work of preparing teachers for the public schools of the State. 



ATTEMPTS AT REFORM 237 

The teacher-training courses, which were of outstanding impor- 
tance in the institution, required three years for completion, and 
in the promotion of this work Craven and Wiley cooperated fully 
for public education in the State, 

The establishment of an educational magazine and the forma- 
tion of a state teachers' association were other evidences of im- 
provement in education in the State. For several years Wiley 
had advocated the creation of these auxiliary agencies, and both 
were promoted largely by his influence as superintendent of 
schools, as president of the teachers' association, and as editor 
of the teachers' journal. The journal first appeared in Septem- 
ber, 1856, and the teachers' association was formed the following 
month. Both undertakings had highly creditable careers and 
rendered valuable educational service to the State before i860. 

Wiley found through his annual reports, which began in 1854 
and continued through 1866, another effective means of encour- 
aging reform and improvement. These reports were intended to 
give information concerning the condition of the schools and the 
progress they were making, to discuss the weaknesses of the sys- 
tem and to make suggestions for further improvement, and finally 
they were used as a means of creating and directing public 
opinion on the subject of universal and free education. And 
through his textbooks, especially "The North Carolina Reader," 
which went through several editions and became a standard for 
use in the schools, Wiley rendered still another important educa- 
tional service.^ 

Considering the obstacles which confronted him Wiley's educa- 
tional achievements will challenge a most favorable comparison 
with the work of any educational leader of the ante-bellum period. 
Before the outbreak of the Civil War his leadership was widely 
recognized and his services were greatly in demand in other States. 
Virginia, South Carolina, and Georgia sought to copy the edu- 
cational example of North Carolina, and Wiley was invited to 

^This book appeared before Wiley was elected superintendent of schools. 
When he was elected to that position he disposed of his interest in the work. 



238 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

appear before the Legislature of Georgia for the purpose of 
aiding that State in improving its school system. Just before the 
war the school system of North Carolina was attracting the 
favorable attention of the "States south, west, and north of us." 
In i860 the scholastic population of the State numbered 221,000, 
and 150,000 children were enrolled in more than 3000 schools. 
More than 2700 teachers were licensed in that year, and more 
than $100,000 was collected in local school taxes. The average 
monthly salary of teachers was S28, and the average school term 
was four months. Teachers' salaries were larger and the school 
term longer in the State just before the war than at any time 
prior to 1900. 

Although Georgia began its career as a member of the Union 
with promising educational prospects, its ante-bellum educational 
career was more or less disappointing. Its efforts for schools 
during the first half century of statehood were noted briefly in 
Chapter V, where it was pointed out that significant steps were 
taken before 1800 and again in 181 7 and 1822, when important 
educational legislation was enacted. It was the act of 1822, how- 
ever, which became the basis of public educational effort in the 
State throughout most of the ante-bellum period. Although 
this effort was more or less feeble, it marked a step in the direc- 
tion of state support of public education, and in it the State 
appeared partially committed to that principle. 

In 1825 Governor G. M. Troup said, when he addressed the 
Legislature, that institutions for the instruction of youth were 
multiplying in "every quarter of the State, founded either by 
public or private contribution," and that the county academies 
were increasing in numbers and respectability and were generally 
sustained by public favor. The poor-school fund was eagerly 
sought by the various counties, he said, "but whether beneficially 
applied in all, is doubtful." He recommended that such general 
permanent regulations be adopted for that part of the system 
as would accommodate the schools to local conditions. Other 
executives recommended from time to time that more legislative 



ATTEMPTS AT REFORM 239 

attention be paid to public education, but practically no 
changes were made in the provisions for schools between 1822 
and the late thirties. ' 

In 1836 one third of Georgia's share of the surplus revenue was 
set apart for school purposes, and a joint legislative committee 
of five was appointed to digest and present an adequate school 
plan for the State. The report of this committee recommended the 
adoption of a plan similar to that in operation in some of the 
Middle and Eastern States and urged the elimination of the prin- 
ciple of charity, which had up to that time so seriously weakened 
Georgia's public educational provisions. About the same time 
Governor Schley said, in his message to the Legislature, that the 
school system of the State was "radically defective." The dis- 
tinctions made between those who accepted the benefits of the 
academy fund and those who were aided by the poor-school 
fund were "invidious and insulting"; and he regarded it highly 
improper, while attempting " to aid the cause of education, to say 
to a portion of the people, 'you are poor.'" The governor noted 
that thousands of honest, patriotic, and valuable citizens were re- 
fusing the bounty and despised the hand that offered it, be- 
cause it was accompanied with insult. He urged the consolidation 
of the academy fund and the poor-school fund into a general 
educational fund to be used for promoting primary education. 

As a result of the governor's recommendations and the report 
of the committee, which was somewhat modified by the Legisla- 
ture, an act was passed in 1837 providing for a more or less 
advanced system. The academy fund and the poor-school fund 
were combined and, with the interest on one third of the surplus 
revenue, were to constitute a general fund for school purposes. 
The following year the law was somewhat modified, and permis- 
sion was given the county courts, on the recommendation of the 
grand jury, to levy an extra county tax, not to exceed 50 
per cent of the general tax, to be added to the general school 
fund. The acts of 1837 and 1838 were without any general effect, 
however, and in 1840 they were repealed, and the funds set apart 



240 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

by them for school purposes were designated as a poor-school 
fund. Three years later the school law was further amended, in 
an act to provide for the education of the poor, and the county 
courts were given permission, with the approval of the grand 
jury, to levy and collect an extra tax which, "with such funds 
as may be received from other sources," would be sufficient to 
educate the poor children of the counties. Local officers were 
to furnish the courts with the names of all such children between 
the ages of eight and sixteen ''as may need total or partial as- 
sistance in obtaining their education"; and commissioners were 
to be appointed to superintend, without compensation, the proper 
application of the funds and the education of the poor and to 
formulate such regulations as would promote the objects of law. 
Under these provisions the public-school work of the State was 
carried on during the remainder of the ante-bellum period. 

The duties of the local officers provided for under the act of 
1843 were frequently not observed. Returns of poor children 
were often entirely neglected, and the returns which were made 
were generally imperfect and incomplete. Not more than three 
fourths of the poor children were reported, and of that number 
only about half were sent to school ; and those who were en- 
rolled attended school less than four months a year. Fifteen 
counties made no returns in 1850, and although the law provided 
that counties neglecting that duty could participate in the distri- 
bution of the income from the school fund on the basis of the 
last return, eight counties in that year received no apportionment 
because they had never made returns of school statistics. In one 
year only fifty-three of the ninety-three counties of the State 
applied for their apportionment of the fund. 

Lack of central supervision, however, was perhaps not the 
chief weakness of the plan. Like the plans experimented with in 
several other States before i860 the plan in Georgia was defec- 
tive in principle. The poor-school system worked a gross injus- 
tice to the poorer counties, which usually had the largest number 
of poor children and the least ability to provide for their education. 



ATTEMPTS AT REFORM 241 

For example, the counties of Jasper and Newton, which had 
about one hundred and twenty poor children, in one year paid 
into the state treasury taxes amounting to $8910; while the 
counties of Gilmer and Union paid only $1594 in taxes and 
reported more than twenty-eight hundred children who were 
entitled to participate in the benefits of the school fund. 

Efforts were made in 1845 ^^^ again in 1858 to inaugurate 
an adequate public-school system in Georgia, but the attempts 
failed. An enthusiastic educational meeting, attended by dele- 
gates from sixty counties, was held in Marietta in the late fifties to 
consider the subject of schools, and an interesting and significant 
address was prepared for the people of the State. The conven- 
tion recommended a central board of education, a state super- 
intendent, adequate school support, the preparation of teachers, 
and other features of a sound school plan. Near the close of the 
ante-bellum period a meeting of the friends of education was 
held in Atlanta during the exhibition of the "Southern Central 
Agricultural Society," and a memorial was prepared to be pre- 
sented to the Legislature in behalf of better educational oppor- 
tunity. The memorial asked for schools "to which the children 
of the poorest citizens shall be sent, without submitting parent 
or child to the jeer of pauperism. . . . School houses which 
shall awaken a feeling of pride in every neighborhood, and cause 
the richest to feel that no private teaching can afford equal advan- 
tages to the common-school. . , . We must have free public 
schools in every school district in Georgia." The memorial urged 
taxation and other progressive educational features. In 1858 Gov- 
ernor Joseph E. Brown urged the Legislature to establish "a 
practical common school system" and recommended that a large 
sum of money be appropriated for that purpose. His message 
was vigorous and influenced the Legislature to set apart the sum of 
$ioopoo annually of the earnings of the Western and Atlantic 
Railroad, which was the property of the State, to be devoted to 
promoting common-school education. This legislation indicated 
a large interest in education and contemplated the creation of a 



242 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

complete school system, and a promising school plan was in the 
making when it was interrupted by the war. 

Georgia was therefore unable to establish such an ante-bellum 
school system as its early educational effort promised. At best 
the plan most generally adopted before i860 was a decentralized, 
permissive county system. In each county there was a board of 
education whose chief members were the treasurer of the school 
fund and a commissioner appointed by the county court ; this 
board issued a permit or license "to almost any person, authorizing 
said person to teach when, where, and how he or she may please." 
As a rule the teacher provided his or her own schoolhouse and 
equipment and received ''seven cents a day for each pupil in 
actual attendance." The teacher filed his account with the 
county officer at stated times and received his compensation from 
the quota which came to the county from the annual distribution 
of the school fund. In general the public conceded that the 
State might "with measurable propriety," make provision for 
the education of those children whose parents were too poor to 
pay tuition fees in private schools, but the principle of public 
education by state support and control had not yet been fully 
accepted in Georgia. Largely for that reason the so-called "poor 
schools" were set up in that State, and if they had not con- 
tained the element of charity the ante-bellum practice would 
doubtless have been productive of greater usefulness. In 1859 
the children entitled to participate in the poor-school fund num- 
bered about 130,000, and about 72,000 were taught by its aid. 

Louisiana did not come into the Union until 181 2, but the 
territorial Legislature had shown some interest in education, 
and a very ambitious educational plan had been outlined and set 
up in 1805, when provision was made for the University of 
Orleans. The following year a public-school law was enacted, 
though it had only a short life ; but during the next quarter of a 
century the more influential citizens showed an interest in efforts 
to establish schools. In 1833 the secretary of State was made 
ex-officio state superintendent of public schools, and interest in 



ATTEMPTS AT REFORM 243 

education during this so-called beneficiary period became wide- 
spread and more or less effective. From time to time the governor 
of the State recommended the abolition of the subsidized paro- 
chial system of academies and private schools (see Chapter IV) 
and the substitution of a thoroughgoing public-school system. In 
1 84 1 New Orleans was given authority to establish a complete 
system of public schools, with a superintendent and support by 
public taxation, and in a few years the public schools of that 
city compared favorably with the best city systems in the country. 
Its educational work continued to grow and, before the war, 
served as a good example to other towns and cities in the South.^ 

Louisiana had no constitutional provisions for education, how- 
ever, until 1845. I^ that year a commission was appointed to 
improve and extend the school system, and the first step was 
taken when advanced provisions for education were incorporated 
in the new constitution adopted at that time. The instrument 
provided for a state superintendent, for a permanent public- 
school fund, and for legislative establishment of public free 
schools and " for their support by taxation on property, or other- 
wise." This was one of the most advanced constitutional pro- 
visions for public education to be found in any State at that time. 
In 1846 Governor Isaac Johnson, in his message to the Legisla- 
ture, recommended the establishment of free public schools and 
institutions of higher learning. A committee on public education 
was accordingly appointed, and in 1847 Louisiana passed its first 
free-school law, which was likewise advanced for the time. An 
annual tax of one mill on the dollar on all taxable property in the 
State was to be levied and collected, and later a capitation tax of 
one dollar on each and every free white male inhabitant above 
twenty-one years of age was also levied. 

The funds thus raised were to be supplemented by the interest 
on the permanent public-school fund, and such revenues were to 
be apportioned by the state superintendent to the various parishes 

^ Henry Barnard assisted in preparing the plan for, and was offered the 
superintendency of, the New Orleans schools. 



244 PUBLIC EDUCATK)N IN THE SOUTH 

in proportion to the scholastic population of each. Local school 
directors or trustees were provided for, and these officers were to 
appropriate to the support of free schools the funds coming to 
their districts, together with such funds as were derived from the 
rents or sales of their school lands. These officers had full author- 
ity over the local schools and were required to make annual re- 
ports to the parish superintendent concerning certain scholastic 
statistics — the amount of school funds apportioned to the dis- 
trict, the number and term of each school taught, the enrollment, 
the course of study, and the salaries paid teachers. The parish 
superintendents, who were elected by the people and commissioned 
by the governor, were required to make similar annual reports to 
the state superintendent. They acted as treasurers of the parish 
funds, stood between the local school trustees and the state 
superintendents, and were required to visit the schools and to 
examine and license the teachers, to fill vacancies in the local 
boards of trustees, and to appoint such boards when the people 
failed to elect them. The salary of these officers was fixed at 
S300 annually. The local trustees were given authority, with the 
consent of a majority of the voters in the district, obtained after 
sufficient public notice, to levy a local property tax for building 
and furnishing schoolhouses. The state superintendent was re- 
quired to visit the various parishes each year to inspect the schools 
for the purpose of awakening interest in education, and to make 
annual reports to the Legislature concerning the public education 
in the State. 

Alexander Dimitry was selected as the first head of the system 
in 1847 for a term of two years and at an annual salary of $3000. 
This was the largest salary paid to a state superintendent of 
schools at that time. Dimitry was widely known as a scholar and 
teacher and was eminently qualified for the important and 
difficult duties of this office. Up to this time such public schools 
as had existed in Louisiana had been under the direction of the 
secretary of State. But only a small success had been achieved. 
As early as 1842 the police jurors (who were county officers of 



ATTEMPTS AT REFORM 245 

the State) were authorized to levy a tax for schools not to exceed 
one half of the annual state tax ; and although large sums of 
money had been expended for so-called public education the plan 
in use before 1847 was so defective that the ex-officio state 
superintendent declared it should be consigned to "an unhonored 
grave." 

The task before the superintendent was, therefore, very diffi- 
cult. However, his first report, which was made in 1848, showed 
that the parishes had been laid off into districts and that the 
system had begun with some promise of success. There was in- 
difference, and hostility occasionally revealed itself, especially 
against the law for levying local school taxes. Yet a large 
part of the scholastic population was enrolled in school, and 
in 1849 the sum of $328,000 was appropriated for free-school 
support. In 1850 there were 692 school districts, with 618 
schools, in which 22,000 children were receiving instruction. Two 
years later the number of public schools in the rural section of 
the State reached 647, and more than half of the scholastic popu- 
lation was in attendance. In some communities high schools 
were reported. 

Certain legislative changes were made in the fifties which were 
not without their influence on the school system. The method 
of selecting the state superintendent was changed from appoint- 
ment by the governor to popular election, and his salary was re- 
duced to $1500 a year. The office of parish superintendent was 
abolished and a nonsalaried board of district directors substituted. 
These changes seriously crippled the system outside of New 
Orleans and added ground for complaint against the school plan. 
One complaint heard in the late fifties was against the local 
directors, who often appeared to have little interest in their work. 
Complaints also ''came from many of the parishes that the 
teachers appointed were not only incompetent, but often drunk- 
ards and unprincipled adventurers,"^ Wherever these conditions 

ipicklen, The Origin and Development of the Public-School System in 
Louisiana. 



246 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

were found many parents demanded and "obtained their chil- 
dren's quota of the public-school funds, which they used in part 
payment of the salaries of private tutors and governesses." This 
method of expenditure of public-school money was very un- 
wholesome and "worked great injustice to the poorer classes." 
From a statement made in the report of the state superintendent 
in 1859 there appeared a more or less representative description 
of conditions in a large part of the State at that time : 

Under the present law nearly every planter has a school at his 
house and draws the pro rata share out of the public treasury. The 
poor children have not the benefit of these schools, and in this parish, 
which pays about $14,000 in school tax, there is consequently not 
enough in the treasury to pay the expense of a single school at the 
parish seat, where it ought to be. 

Considering the obstacles confronting the plan and the condi- 
tions just described, the system set up under the law of 1847 
achieved a marked degree of success. Private schools were nu- 
merous and excellent, and where "public schools were established 
teachers of inferior skill were employed." Local officers were often 
careless, and seeing that the wealthy and influential planters were 
satisfied, the Legislature confined its action to the appropriation of 
"ample funds, which often never reached the schools" for which 
they were intended. This source of public-school support was 
generally very liberal; from 1847 to 1861 the sum of $3,840,000 
was appropriated for that purpose, and the Confederate Legisla- 
ture of 1862 appropriated $485,000 for public schools. At the 
outbreak of the war fully half of the scholastic population of the 
State outside of New Orleans was in public schools. In that city 
public graded schools had been in operation for several years and 
had attained a very marked degree of success. 

There were only a few schools in Mississippi before 1795, but 
by 1800 several private schools seem to have been set up, and in 
1801 a "public female school" was opened, although this was very 
likely supported by tuition fees. In 1802 Jefferson College was 



ATTEMPTS AT REFORM 247 

chartered by the territorial Legislature and opened nine years 
later. In 181 7 the territory which included the present State of 
Mississippi was admitted to the Union. The constitution adopted 
in that year contained the educational provision of the Northwest 
Ordinance of 1789, and this provision was continued in the con- 
stitution of 1832 and of 1865 : "Religion, morality, and knowledge 
being necessary to good government, the preservation of liberty, 
and the happiness of mankind, schools, and the means of educa- 
tion, shall forever be encouraged in this State." 

At the first meeting of the Legislature, in 181 8, provision was 
made to take care of the sixteenth-section lands, which had already 
been set apart for purposes of education, and the county courts 
were authorized to provide one or more schools in each county "as 
they should deem right and useful." In 182 1 a fuller educational 
act was passed creating a literary fund and providing for county 
school commissioners, who were to distribute the proceeds of the 
fund for the education of poor children, who, with the consent of 
their parents or guardians, were to be selected by the commission- 
ers to be taught reading, writing, and arithmetic. These county 
school officers were to visit and examine the schools, to examine 
into the qualifications of the teachers, and to collect and report 
certain educational statistics in their various counties. Three 
years later further legislation was enacted for the management of 
schools, making the township the educational unit of the State. In 
1833 another school law was passed which dealt in the main with 
the literary fund and the annual distribution of its income, which 
was to be used for the education of poor children. Up to that time 
the so-called public schools of the State had been established and 
aided by funds arising from the leases or sales of the sixteenth- 
section lands, which had been donated by Congress, and by the 
small income from the literary fund established in 182 1. 

In the early forties the subject of public schools was greatly agi- 
tated, the question being stirred by a discussion of the sixteenth- 
section lands and by the tide of immigration and the resulting 
rapid increase in illiteracy. This agitation was enlarged by the 



248 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

work of Governor A. G. Brown, who had broad educational sym- 
pathies and who, before his election as the chief executive of the 
State, had urged the estabhshment of public free schools for all 
the children. His inaugural address in 1844 contained an earnest 
and eloquent plea for public education, and although his appeal 
failed to secure immediate legislative action, it created a healthy 
educational interest. During the following years this interest re- 
flected itself in the newspaper of the State. Moreover, local 
organizations of the Whig and of the Democratic party resolved 
in favor of public schools, which became a striking feature of 
the campaign. In 1846 Governor Brown made another appeal to 
the Legislature, and that body responded with an act of March 4 
of that year. This was the first law enacted in Mississippi 
looking to the establishment of a general system of public schools. 
The law provided for local school commissioners, to be ap- 
pointed by the boards of county police and to have charge of 
schools in their local districts. They were to license and make 
contracts with teachers and to have general control of the local 
schools. The compensation of ^e teachers was to come from 
the county funds, which consisted of the sixteenth-section funds, 
escheats, fines, forfeitures, and certain license taxes. To the funds 
arising from these sources were to be added also certain special 
school taxes which the commissioners were empowered to levy 
with the written consent of a majority of the heads of families 
in each township. The commissioners were required to collect 
and report statistics concerning the schools to the secretary of 
State, who was made ex-officio superintendent of public education. 
Like the ante-bellum school laws of many States this act was 
weakened by its extremely permissive features and its lack of 
provision for strong central supervision. Any township could 
be exempted from the provisions of the act if a majority of the 
heads of families should file a written protest with the county 
board of police before a certain date each year. Moreover, the 
power to raise local school taxes was so permissive as to work its 
own defeat. The law failed also to repeal previous educational 



ATTEMPTS AT REFORM 249 

legislation, and this neglect gave rise to puzzling and complicated 
constructions. In spite of all these defects, however, the law 
was not entirely without force and value. It was a step in the 
right direction and served as a not altogether unworthy beginning, 
remaining, with a few slight revisions, the basis of public educa- 
tional effort in the State until the war. 

But the plan created by this act failed to meet the full expecta- 
tions of its friends, and in 1848 Governor Brown urged its re- 
vision or repeal and the substitution of a more adequate plan. 
But the Legislature did not act on the suggestion. Instead, four 
separate acts were later passed, and each of them provided for 
a different school plan. One law applied to six counties, another 
to five, the third to seven, the fourth to seventeen, and the law of 
1846 was in force in the remaining counties. During the remain- 
der of the ante-bellum period the evil of local and privileged 
educational legislation continued. The following excerpt from the 
report of the ex-officio superintendent for 1851 serves as a good 
illustration of this condition, which continued to prevail until the 
war: 

At the session, of the legislature in 1850 special acts upon the sub- 
ject of the schools were passed for a large number of counties. The 
special legislation upon this subject has virtually repealed the law 
providing for a general system of common schools in the State. On 
examining the various laws upon this subject, repeals and reenact- 
ments, special and supplemental laws, the subject is thrown into such 
a state of confusion that it is difficult to tell what the law is. In 
December, 1849, my predecessor made an elaborate report to the 
governor in which he states that in his previous report he was able to 
report from one-fourth of the counties in the State, and regrets that 
in his present report he could present the condition of schools in only 
eleven counties. And I now have to report that during the last two years 
returns from three counties only have been made to this office. This 
is owing to the special laws passed for most of the counties which are 
not required to report the condition of the schools to the secretary of 
State. It is not so much my purpose to make a report upon schools as 
to show why I have not done it, and also to show due respect to those 
counties who have made their reports. 



2 50 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

Some slight ante-bellum educational growth in Mississippi was 
noticeable, however, even with the ruinous policy of special 
legislation in the way. In 1840, for example, there were 382 
common schools with more than 8000 pupils reported in the 
State. Ten years later the common schools numbered 762 with 
826 teachers and nearly 19,000 pupils. The total expenditures 
for common schools that year were about $254,000, and more 
than $66,000 came from public funds and taxes. In i860 there 
were 11 16 common schools in the State with 12 15 teachers 
and an enrollment of about 31,000. The sum of $385,000 was 
expended for common schools, but three fifths of this expenditure 
came from tuition fees. 

Alabama came into the Union in 18 19 with a rather creditable 
constitutional provision for schools. Legislation enacted in that 
year looked to the promotion of public schools to be supported 
by the proceeds of the sixteenth-section lands, but this law 
seems to have been without any very great effect. In 1823 further 
legislation was enacted which provided for local trustees, who 
were to build schoolhouses, to examine and employ teachers, and 
to report those pupils who were to be admitted to the schools free 
of charge. Poor children were to be received at the expense of 
the district or county, while those who were able to do so paid a 
tuition fee — a practice which prevailed throughout the so-called 
experimental period. By act of 1839 the state bank, which held 
the permanent public-school fund of the State, was directed to 
pay the sum of $150,000 annually for school support, and this 
amount was increased to $200,000 in 1840. By the law of 1840 no 
township could receive more than $400, and this assistance seems 
to have been furnished only after certain sums (usually about 
one third of the amount given by the State) had been subscribed 
and collected locally. Moreover, it appears that the law assumed 
that the schools should be actually taught in advance of state aid, 
and it is evident that the purpose of the law was to stimulate 
local initiative and community enterprise. However, no citizen 
was entitled "to an amount exceeding the amount" which he 



ATTEMPTS AT REFORM 251 

actually subscribed, but poor children were to be educated free 
of charge. This State, therefore, also looked primarily to the 
education of the poor. 

Direct aid from the profits of the state bank, however, did not 
long continue. The proceeds of the land sales were carelessly 
invested, and a large part of the school fund was lost (see Chap- 
ter V). Efforts were made, however, throughout the forties and 
in the early fifties to bring about improvement. Legislative 
committees reported eloquently on the necessity of public schools, 
but regretted that heavy public burdens prevented any state aid 
to them. State taxation was urged, however, and the appoint- 
ment of a state superintendent was recommended ; and a bill was 
presented at the Legislature of 1 851-185 2 authorizing the ap- 
pointment of such an officer, but the bill failed. At that time 
there was a scholastic population of about 100,000 in the State, 
but there were only about 11 52 public schools, with 1195 teach- 
ers and nearly 29,000 children. Hundreds of communities were 
entirely without schools, although in "rare cases enterprising 
teachers succeeded in arousing a strong local interest and in 
building up what might be termed country academies, in which 
the classics and sciences were taught, and aspiring young men 
received their preparation for college." 

A marked change was taking place in the early fifties, how- 
ever, and there appeared a rather wholesome sentiment for public 
schools. In the Legislature of 1853-1854 Robert M. Patton (who 
later became governor of the State), Alexander B. Meek (who 
was a prominent "lawyer and judge, editor and legislator, poet 
and soldier"), and Jabez L. M. Curry (who later became the gen- 
eral agent of the Peabody Fund) worked for educational improve- 
ment and were instrumental in the passage of the law of 1854, 
which became the basis of a creditable school system through the 
remainder of the ante-bellum period. The law created an educa- 
tional fund and provided for a state superintendent, county school 
commissioners, and local township trustees, the examination and 
certification of teachers, and authority for the counties to levy 



2 52 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

a property tax for school support. There was no direct state 
taxation for schools, although the law provided for an annual 
appropriation of Si 00,000 from the state treasury for that pur- 
pose, and this sum necessarily came from taxes. Dr. Stephen 
B. Weeks says^ that the law showed "a grasp of educational 
problems, a comprehension of school difficulties and school 
needs and a modernity of methods and aims that are truly 
astonishing," 

William F. Perry, a man of long and successful teaching ex- 
perience, was selected as the first state superintendent and began 
immediately to set in motion the splendid school plan. Local 
officers were slow to learn the importance of making returns of 
school statistics, and Perry seemed discouraged. In his first re- 
port he said that three fourths of the children of the State were 
either entirely without instruction "or have been crowded into 
miserable apologies for schoolhouses, without comfortable seats, 
without desks or blackboards, often without the necessary text- 
books, and still oftener without competent teachers." But he 
believed that the majority of the people looked upon the school 
system with much favor and would soon lend their aid to pro- 
mote its efficiency. A large number of schools had been estab- 
lished, and while the school system had not been so successful as 
its advocates had hoped, in some parts of the State it had worked 
well and was productive of good. The superintendent outlined 
a wide course of study, recommended grading and classifying the 
pupils, and suggested a list of textbooks. He also recommended 
a list of books for the teachers. 

The law was revised in 1856 and the school system greatly 
improved. The scholastic population in that year was about 
171,000, and nearly 90,000 children were enrolled in more than 
2200 schools which had an average term of about six months. 
In that year the sum of $474,000 was expended for public-school 
support. Perry, who served as superintendent until September, 
1858, constantly directed attention to improvements in the 
1 History of Public School Education in Alabama, p. 63. 



ATTEMPTS AT REFORM 253 

construction and furnishing of schoolhouses, in the qualifications 
of teachers, and the need for enhghtening public opinion. Public 
sentiment gradually developed in favor of schools, but there were 
numerous ill-wishers who welcomed every opportunity to attack 
the state system. There was also a lack of sufficient central au- 
thority to compel the local officers to conform to all the require- 
ments of the law, and the result was carelessness and indifference, 
which were universal obstacles to ante-bellum educational 
effort. However, the Alabama Educational Association was 
formed in 1856, to have several successful and influential meet- 
ings before the war, and numerous local educational associations 
were also organized. The Alabama Educational Journal, estab- 
lished by Superintendent Perry in January, 1857, also rendered 
a valuable service to the school interests of the State during its 
short career. These and other agencies greatly aided in the devel- 
opment of a sound educational sentiment. 

Gabriel B. Duval succeeded Perry as superintendent Septem- 
ber I, 1858, and served until 1864. Under his administration 
considerable educational progress was made. Growth was slow 
but steady and consistent. Counties rapidly became well organ- 
ized, schools continued to be increased, ''and it would appear 
that the public funds were expended in the way least likely to 
emphasize the pauper school idea." Public funds were used, 
however, to "supplement private endeavor," and this plan was so 
successful that in 1858 the average school term was more than six 
months and in Pickens County the schools were reported open all 
the year. Duval made his last report in 1859, and at the outbreak 
of the war went to the front as captain of a volunteer company ; 
in his absence his educational duties were performed by his 
chief clerk, W. C. Allen. In March, 1864, Duval seems to have re- 
signed as superintendent, and Allen served as head of the state 
school system until January, 1865, when he was succeeded by 
John B. Taylor. 

Throughout that stormy period the schools continued to oper- 
ate with surprising consistency. In 1861 the total expenditures 



2 54 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

for school purposes were about $284,000, and in 1865 about 
$113,000. The schools were kept open until the appointment of a 
provisional governor in July, 1865, although ''amidst embarrass- 
ments incident to a state of fierce warfare," said Superintendent 
John B. Ryan in April, 1866. The records and papers of the 
superintendent's office ''were carted about the country in boxes" 
(to keep them from the hands of spoilers) during most of the 
time after 1863. The people seemed determined to keep the 
schools open as long as possible. On this point the following 
letter of March 11, 1865, from State Superintendent Taylor to 
W. H. Huston, superintendent of Dallas County, has interest: 

I am much gratified to learn from your letter of the 8th inst. that' 
the absorbing and engrossing interest of the times and the perilous 
condition of the country have not retarded the educational interests of 
the populous and wealthy country which you represent, and that 
parents evince an "enthusiastic interest in the education of their 
children." Of a truth "Carpe diem" should be the motto of our 
people at this time, for "we know not what the day may bring forth," 
nor how soon present advantages may pass away before the invasion 
of a ruthless foe, or how even their sons may be called away from the 
pursuits of learning to the more immediate and pressing necessity of 
defense. 

I trust that the wisdom of Congress may adopt some plan whereby 
disabled soldiers and officers, unfit for duty in the field, may be retired, 
and thus competent instructors from among the educated take their 
places as instructors of the rising generation. An accomplished officer, 
formerly a teacher, and now himself maimed and unable to resume his 
command, informed me that there are many such now spending their 
time in idleness or assigned to duties for which they are incompetent. 
He also stated that he had mentioned the matter to members of Con- 
gress and that he hoped they would take such action as would lead to 
beneficial results. Let us then wait in hope. 

I am pleased with your plan for procuring schoolbooks and trust 
you will meet with eminent success. It should certainly be adopted in 
every county when practicable, and has been acted upon to some 
extent by the booksellers of this city. 

Professor B. T. Smith, of Central Institute, is now engaged upon an 
abridged arithmetic for the use of public schools and has completed 



ATTEMPTS AT REFORM 255 

the work as far as division. When that is completed I shall request 
him to publish, if a publisher can be obtained, leaving the remainder 
for a future edition. This part will answer for primary classes and 
will supply a present want. If encouraged in this undertaking, the 
professor will enter upon abridgments of other schoolbooks. 

You will oblige me by giving me notice of the time and place of 
holding your county convention. It is my desire to visit as many as 
the limited time at my command will permit. 

Arkansas was organized as a territory in 18 19 and was ad- 
mitted as a State seventeen years later. Under territorial legis- 
lation enacted in the early thirties provision was made for taking 
care of the school lands and the funds arising from rent or sales 
of these lands, and a slight beginning was made for public schools. 
During a large part of the ante-bellum period the academy was 
used for immediate educational needs, although during that 
period the principles of public education were gradually being 
accepted. In 1829 schools were reported in "almost every 
township of the few counties that constituted the territory." 
Some of these were private schools "taught by old-field school- 
masters, well-educated men," while others were under the direc- 
tion of the county courts and were supported by tuition fees and 
the funds arising from the school lands. 

In 1836, when Arkansas came into the Union, its consti- 
tution said : 

Knowledge and learning generally diffused through a community 
being essential to the preservation of a free government, and diffusing 
the opportunities and advantages of education through the various 
parts of the State being highly conducive to this end, it shall be 
the duty of the General Assembly to provide by law for the improve- 
ment of such lands as are, or hereafter may be, granted by the United 
States to this State for the use of schools, and to apply any funds which 
may be raised from such lands, or from any other source, to the 
accomplishment of the object for which they are or may be intended. 
The General Assembly shall from time to time pass such laws as 
shall be calculated to encourage intellectual, scientific, and agricultural 
improvement by allowing rewards and immunities for the promotion 



256 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

and improvement of arts, science, commerce, manufactures, and 
natural history, and countenance and encourage the principles of 
humanity, industry, and morality. 

In his inaugural address James S. Conway, the first governor of 
the state, urged the examination and collection of all materials 
"calculated to enlighten the public mind and diffuse general and 
useful knowledge," believing that the State had ample means to 
establish schools to ''insure universal education of the youth of 
our country." Educational interest gradually increased, and in 
1843 ^ l3^w was passed to establish a system of public schools 
in an effort to unite all the educational forces of the State. Pro- 
vision was made for local school trustees, who were to have 
control of the school funds, to build schoolhouses, to employ 
competent teachers, and to provide for a four months' school or 
schools in each township, in which ''orthography, reading, writ- 
ing, English grammar, geography, arithmetic, and good morals" 
were to be taught. Provision was also made for a state board of 
education, for a board of county school commissioners for each 
county, and for the purchase of books to be used in the common 
schools of the State. The schools were to be supported by the 
fund created from the sixteenth-section lands and by private 
contributions, and children whose parents were unable to con- 
tribute were classed and educated as "indigents." The principle 
of state or local taxation for school support was absent. 

The legislation proved defective and impracticable, and in 
1846 Governor Drew said that the plan had "not been carried 
into successful operation." Three years later another school law 
was passed and the sum of $250,000 was appropriated to carry 
out its provisions, but this seems to have been nothing more 
than a paper appropriation.^ Still further legislation was enacted 
in 185 1 in an effort to consolidate and to improve the school 
system of the State, but the provisions were not altogether unlike 
those of previous legislation. Governor John S. Roane, in his 

1 Weeks, History of Public School Education in Arkansas, chap. iii. 



ATTEMPTS AT REFORM 257 

message to the Legislature in 1852, was "convinced from a care- 
ful investigation into the history of common schools and other 
public institutions of learning in other new States, and the prac- 
tical operation of this law here at home, that no possible good 
has come of it, or even can result to the State, or any consider- 
able portion of the people." He urged immediate legislative im- 
provement, and largely as a result of his recommendations a more 
advanced law was passed in 1853 which improved and reaffirmed 
some of the provisions of the earlier laws. The secretary of State 
became ex-officio state superintendent of schools, and provision 
was made for county school commissioners, who were ex-officio 
county superintendents, and for local trustees. But there was 
no provision for taxation for school support. With this exception, 
however, the law of 1853 tended toward centralization and prom- 
ised a degree of success, although in practical operation the sys- 
tem thus established was more or less disappointing to the advo- 
cates of public education in the State. 

David B. Greer, the secretary of State and ex-officio state super- 
intendent of schools, made his first report in 1854. At that time 
only a few counties had made reports, and many probably ''had no 
school organization whatsoever under the law then in force." 
Greer saw "a gloomy picture" in the school conditions of the 
State, but he thought the " friends of education should not be dis- 
couraged." Arkansas had encountered the same difficulties in its 
public educational enterprises which had confronted all the new 
and sparsely settled States. Chief among these obstacles was the 
lack of a sound and adequate means of school support and " the 
indifference that pervades the public mind on the subject of 
education." To overcome these difficulties Greer urged state 
taxation and the appointment of a capable man for state superin- 
tendent to go among the people and stimulate educational interest. 
Governor Elias N. Conway urged, in his message to the Legislature 
in 1854, that the capitation taxes be appropriated for educational 
purposes. For want of adequate means only a few schools had 
been established under the law of 1853. 



258 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

Greer's report for the years 1854-1856 showed that reports had 
been received from only half the counties of the State, and these 
were vague, inexplicit, and unsatisfactory. Few statistics were 
given. It was estimated that there were only about twenty-five 
common schools in the State which were maintained by the public- 
school fund, and Greer believed that the attempt to organize 
and establish such schools was almost an entire failure. Condi- 
tions began gradually to improve, however, even though the school 
plan was defective in principle. In i860 there were about seven 
hundred and fifty common schools in operation in the State, with 
nearly twenty thousand children in attendance. It appears that 
the average monthly salary paid teachers was about S27. Besides 
the common schools there were more than a hundred academies, 
on which Arkansas depended in great measure for its chief source 
of education throughout the ante-bellum period. There, as in 
many other States before the Civil War, it was believed that 
education was a domestic or religious concern rather than a con- 
cern for the State, and the principle of public taxation as the 
chief means of school support developed very slowly. 

Texas and Florida were the last of the Southern States to 
come into the Union. The former seceded from Mexico in 1836, 
established its independence, and was admitted to the American 
Union in 1845. Florida was admitted the same year. The ante- 
bellum educational careers of these States were, therefore, very 
brief. 

The constitution of the Mexican State, known as Coahuila and 
Texas, provided for the establishment of Mexican schools for the 
purpose of giving instruction in reading, writing, and arithmetic, 
the catechism, morals, and the constitution, and ordered that a 
school plan be made for the State. As early as 1828 an American 
type of school was organized under Spanish supervision, and later 
the Mexican government made provision for instruction on the 
Lancasterian plan in several schools. Later still the American 
residents memorialized the executive and the Legislature for more 
adequate educational facilities, and in 1833 the Mexican State 



ATTEMPTS AT REFORM 259 

granted lands for schools, but the grant accomplished little good. 
And one of the grievances which Texas mentioned in its declara- 
tion of independence was the failure of the Mexican government 
to provide public schools. 

The constitution of the Republic of Texas in 1836 said, "It 
shall be the duty of Congress, as soon as circumstances will per- 
mit, to provide by law a general system of education." By an 
act of 1839 three leagues of land were granted to each organized 
county for the purpose of establishing a primary school or acad- 
emy therein, and fifty leagues for the support of two colleges or 
universities in the Republic. Slight educational advancement 
was made under the provisions of this act. In 1840 an act was 
passed making provision for a board of school commissioners of 
each county to care for local school interests. They were empow- 
ered to organize the counties into districts, to examine and 
certificate teachers, and to inspect the schools. Teachers of public 
schools could not legally receive compensation for services unless 
they held the board's certificate, and all such teachers were re- 
quired to be competent to teach reading, writing, arithmetic, 
English grammar, and geography. Teachers in academies were 
required to be college or university graduates. 

The first constitution of Texas, after it became a member of the 
Union, contained the following advanced educational provisions : 

Section i. A general diffusion of knowledge being essential to 
the preservation of the rights and liberties of the people, it shall be 
the duty of the Legislature of this State to make suitable provision 
for the support and maintenance of public schools. 

Section 2. The Legislature shall, as early as practicable, establish 
free schools throughout the State, and shall furnish means for their sup- 
port by taxation on property ; and it shall be the duty of the Legis- 
lature to set apart not less than one-tenth of the annual revenue of the 
State, derivable from taxation, as a perpetual fund, which fund shall 
be appropriated to the support of free public schools ; and no law 
shall ever be made diverting said fund to any other use ; and until 
such time as the Legislature shall provide for the establishment of 
such schools in the several districts of the State, the fund thus 



26o PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

created shall remain as a charge against the State, passed to the credit 
of the free common-school fund. 

Section 3. All public lands which have been heretofore, or which 
may hereafter be, granted for public schools to the various counties, 
or other political divisions in this State, shall not be aUenated in fee, 
nor disposed of otherwise than by lease for a term not exceeding 
twenty years, in such manner as the Legislature may direct. 

Section 4. The several counties in this State which have not re- 
ceived their quantum of lands for the purposes of education shall be 
entitled to the same quantity heretofore appropriated by the Congress 
of the Republic of Texas to other counties. 

For several years after Texas became one of the United States 
the sparsity of population and the confusion and disorder which 
grew out of the war with Mexico delayed legislative compliance 
with the educational provisions of the constitution. By 1854, 
however, the population of the State had greatly increased and 
the confused conditions of the times had somewhat disappeared. 
The State was then ready to turn attention to its educational 
needs, and in January, 1854, an act was approved establish- 
ing a system of public schools. This act provided for setting 
apart for school purposes the sum of $200,000 in 5 per cent 
United States bonds. The annual interest on this fund was to be 
distributed to the various counties of the State on the basis of 
free white population between the ages of six and sixteen years. 

The chief justice and the commissioners of each county were 
constituted a board of county school commissioners who were 
to have the counties of the State formed into districts and to 
order an election of three trustees for each local school. These 
trustees were to call elections for the purpose of locating school- 
houses and to attend to the erection of a schoolhouse in each 
district. Until a good and substantial house with the necessary 
equipment should be provided no money could be drawn from the 
county treasury for school purposes in the local district. The trus- 
tees were also charged with the duty of engaging teachers, visiting 
the schools, and exercising general educational superintendence 



ATTEMPTS AT REFORM 261 

in their districts. The schools were to be maintained by the 
funds coming from the State and by subscriptions, and if these 
sources were not sufficient to pay the salaries agreed upon, the 
trustees had authority to levy rate bills on the patrons to supply 
the deficiencies. Under the law the treasurer of the State was 
ex-officio state superintendent of schools. The state appor- 
tionment of school funds was made annually on the basis of 
statements made by the tax assessors and collectors concerning 
the number of school children in each district. These and other 
records were kept by the treasurer of the State, to whom the 
local trustees were required to report annually. The state treas- 
urer was likewise required to make annual reports to the governor. 

This act and a few minor revisions remained until the Civil War 
the legal basis of the common-school system of Texas. The law 
did not prevent local trustees from employing teachers of the 
primary department of any college, academy, or other private 
school, or from converting such department into a common school 
for the local district if the patrons so desired and so instructed 
the trustees. This soon came to be a widely popular practice in 
the State and led in many instances to the ingrafting of so-called 
public schools on private or incorporated institutions — a practice 
which prevailed more or less widely throughout the South during 
ante-bellum days and, to some extent, later. In i860 there were 
12 18 public schools reported in the State, with 1274 teachers and 
nearly 37,000 pupils, supported at an expenditure of more than 
$414,000. The schools could hardly be called free schools, how- 
ever, since the larger part of their support was from tuition fees, 
even though after 1846 one tenth of the annual revenues of the 
State, in addition to the income from the school fund, was said 
to have been appropriated for school purposes in accordance with 
constitutional requirement. 

Florida was made a territory in 1819, but almost nothing was 
done for public education until 1831, when the Florida Education 
Society was formed " to diffuse information on the subject of edu- 
cation and to secure the establishment of a school system for the 



262 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

territory." In the same year the governor was authorized to 
appoint three commissioners to examine into the need for schools 
and to report a plan suited to the needs and resources of the 
territory. A women's educational organization was formed in 
the State about the same time, and considerable interest was 
shown in public schools. In 1832 provision was made for a 
Fellenberg manual-labor school at Tallahassee, and a so-called 
"common school" was set up at St. Augustine. 

In 1839 educational legislation was enacted which provided for 
a form of local organization and administration similar to that 
in use in other States at that time. Provision was made for three 
township trustees to care for the school lands and to apply the 
income to school support. This problem was a most difficult one, 
however, because many townships were practically uninhabited at 
that time. In 1843 the county sheriffs were made commissioners 
for the care of school lands, and the funds accruing from these 
sources were appropriated to the education of poor children. 
In 1845, the year that Florida entered the Union, the county pro- 
bate judges were made ex-officio county school superintendents, 
one of whose duties was to receive educational reports from the 
local trustees and to forward them to the secretary of State, who 
embodied them in his report to the Legislature. 

The constitution of Florida, under which the territory became 
a State in 1845, was framed in 1838 and provided for a perpetual 
fund to be appropriated for the use of public schools. The first 
school law enacted after the State was admitted to the Union was 
the act of 1849, which provided for the establishment of a school 
system. The following year the registrar of public lands was made 
ex-officio state superintendent of public schools, and county taxa- 
tion for school support was authorized, but this part of the law 
seems to have been effective only in Monroe and Franklin Coun- 
ties. The school fund at this time was by common consent ap- 
plied almost exclusively to the education of the poor children. 
In 1852 Tallahassee established a public school which was sup- 
ported by a public levy in the town, and this school was among 



ATTEMPTS AT REFORM 263 

the earliest town schools in the South supported by taxation. 
About the same time legal provision was made for establishing 
two seminaries, one in East and one in West Florida, on lands 
previously granted by Congress for that purpose. According to 
the law the first purpose of these institutions was " the instruction 
of persons, both male and female, in the art of teaching all the 
various branches that pertain to a good common school educa- 
tion," and ''instruction in the mechanic arts, in husbandry and 
agricultural chemistry, in the fundamental laws, and in what 
regards the rights and duties of citizens." Each county was en- 
titled to send to one of these seminaries as many pupils as it had 
representatives in the Legislature of the State. One of these schools 
was set up at Ocala and later moved to Gainesville, and the other 
was established at Tallahassee ; and, with temporary interrup- 
tions, they had long and useful careers as educational agencies. 

Just prior to the outbreak of the Civil War public sentiment in 
Florida was rapidly developing in favor of public free schools. 
Legislation was being revised and improved, the idea of taxation 
for school support was gaining strength, and improvement was 
generally appearing. Interest in normal-school work was espe- 
cially gaining at the close of the ante-bellum period. The chief 
weaknesses of the school plan, however, were a lack of adequate 
financial support and the absence of effective state supervision. 
The total income from the State for educational purposes in 
i860 was about $75,000, and of this amount nearly $23,000 
came from the school-fund income. But the report of the ex- 
officio superintendent for the closing years of the period under 
discussion showed that several counties "were taking hold of the 
public schools and running them for three months" and that such 
schools cost less and were superior to private schools. 

From this general description of educational development in the 
South before i860 it may be seen that the response to the ante- 
bellum educational revival was not so prompt and effective there 
as in some other parts of the country. But even in that region 
a new educational consciousness was being awakened. During 



264 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

the two decades immediately preceding the war the ground was 
being prepared for a more wholesome conception of education as 
a function of the State, and the Southern States generally were 
responding or were preparing to respond to the increased de- 
mands for public schools when the conflict of 1 861-1865 inter- 
rupted the movement. 

Long legislative struggles were necessary before adequate and 
complete laws were secured for the public support and supervision 
of schools. This was the experience of practically every State, for 
legislative action followed far behind the advanced recommenda- 
tions of the advocates of universal and free elementary education. 
But in the Southern States several factors and influences espe- 
cially served to retard the force of the revival spirit which was so 
effectively felt in some other sections. Chief among these factors 
was the institution of slavery, which tended to pronounce class and 
social distinctions and to widen the line which separated the 
independent from the dependent part of the community. Aris- 
tocratic notions and conceptions colored political as well as social 
action. Moreover, class and sectional struggles appeared within 
several of the Southern States, and these held back the cause of 
schools. Liberal constitutional provisions for general elementary 
education appeared before i860, but the idea early appeared and 
continued to prevail that free public schools were to be provided 
by the State primarily, if at all, for the children of the poor and 
dependent. Those opposing a state-supported and state-controlled 
school system for all children argued that it would make education 
too common, serve to change the status of those whose social 
position was fixed, and break down certain social barriers. 

Conflicts with religious and sectarian interests also served for a 
time to delay the acceptance of the democratic theory of educa- 
tion. Voluntary agencies had long been depended on for elemen- 
tary education for poor children, and the practice of appropriating 
public-school funds to private and sometimes to denominational 
schools rather strengthened opposition to a state school system. 
The theory that education by the State was an intrusion into the 



ATTEMPTS AT REFORM 265 

parental obligation, and, as such, was dangerous and pagan, had 
force also and persisted for many years. Objection to taxes except 
for ordinary expenses of government, and a rather widespread 
belief that those having no children should not be taxed to support 
schools, likewise retarded public education. Moreover, when 
beginnings had been made there was a general tendency in all the 
Southern States to place educational authority in small local units 
where selfish and provincial interests were strong and where com- 
munity cooperation was most difficult to secure. Among certain 
classes of people there was the belief that a state system of schools 
was visionary and impractical. To combat these and other objec- 
tions and to overcome the prejudices against public schools re- 
quired long and patient effort of many agencies before the cause of 
universal and free education for all could gain strength and 
popular favor. 

It should be kept in mind also that the South was then, as it has 
always been, essentially rural. It was a region of country people 
who were sparsely settled. They were slow to respond to new 
movements and advanced ideas because this sparsity and the poor 
conditions of means of communication prevented an extension of 
such movements and ideas to them. Methods of farming were 
primitive, markets were undeveloped, industrial centers were few, 
and life in the South was generally lonely and isolated. Com- 
munity and neighborhood cooperation was practically unknown. 
The persistence of some of these conditions helps to explain the low 
educational rank of the South at the present time.^ Education in 
representative cities compared favorably with education in cities 
elsewhere, but outside such centers the problem in the South is to 
provide for large numbers of children who are scattered over vast 
areas. This is one reason why the condition of rural education 
presents the most immediately urgent task confronting the South 
at this time. 

The factors and influences which tended to promote public 
schools were not so numerous or unusual in the South before 

^See Ayres, An Index Number for State School Systems. New York, 192c. 



2 66 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

i860, but considerable force had been gained for the cause by that 
date. The increase in population and the lack of a corresponding 
increase in adequate facilities for schools drew attention to the 
new educational needs. Open letters and addresses on the sub- 
ject were published in the press, education societies were formed 
and had a wide range of activities (especially during the closing 
years of the ante-bellum period), and elaborate legislative reports 
and studies were made for purposes of propaganda. As noted at 
the beginning of this chapter the extension of the franchise made 
the need for more schools appear rather acute. From the thirties 
to the late fifties the recommendations of the governors and the 
reports of state school officers likewise effected a change in public 
attitude and often influenced legislative action. The cheapness of 
the Lancasterian system of monitorial instruction, which was 
adopted in many towns and cities in the South, assisted in develop- 
ing sentiment for public schools, though its influence was not so 
great in that region as in those sections which had larger centers. 
This method of instruction helped to prepare the way for state 
taxation. The Sunday school, which was organized primarily 
not to give religious instruction but to teach poor children to 
read and to write, also proved an aid in promoting the public- 
school idea. Virginia, which was a pioneer in this movement, 
and other Southern States responded very promptly and effec- 
tively to this educational interest, which drew the attention of the 
more prosperous and better-educated class of the community to 
the educational needs of the less prosperous and the ignorant. 

These and other forces and agencies were at work at one time 
or another in the South before the Civil War. Most of the States 
in that region passed rather slowly through the process of democ- 
ratizing education, and the principle of public education, as it is 
understood today, was not early and fully accepted by any of 
them. But that principle had not gained complete and practical 
acceptance anywhere in the United States before the Civil War. 
Yet even in the Southern States, where the contests for free 
schools were very fierce, considerable progress was made for public 



ATTEMPTS AT REFORM 267 

elementary education. And on the eve of that great conflict those 
States were generally preparing to accept the democratic idea of 
schools supported and controlled by the State. But for the 
Civil War and its dreadful aftermath the history of public edu- 
cation in the South would be a different and a better story. 

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION AND FURTHER STUDY 

1. List the obstacles to public educational development in the 
South or in a given Southern State before i860 under (a) social, 
(b) economic, (c) political, (d) religious. 

2. List the factors or agencies which tended to promote public 
schools in the South or in a given Southern State before the Civil War. 

3. Make a study of the legislative conflict over the subject of 
public support and control of schools in your State between 1830 and 
i860. What were the defects of the method or methods of school 
support in your State before i860? 

4. List the arguments for and those against public schools in your 
State before i860 and compare or contrast them with arguments made 
for and against the proposed extension of public education today. 

5. Study the principal features of the Lancasterian system of 
schools and account for its popularity in cities where it was adopted. 
How widely was the system adopted in your State ? 

6. Trace the development of the Sunday-school movement in your 
State and point out its value to public education. 

7. Account for the element of charity which was present in prac- 
tically all public-school plans established in the South before i860. 
Account for the persistence of the "pauper school" idea in public 
education. 

8. Study the relation of density of population to public educational 
development. In what way does the growth of cities affect public 
education ? 

9. Show the actual influence on public educational sentiment of 
the extension of suffrage and the increase in elective offices. 

10. List the principal factors on which rural-school improvement 
depends in your State. Why is rural education such an immediately 
urgent and difficult problem in the South today ? 

11. Trace the development of taxation for schools in your State. 



268 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

12. What part of the school population was enrolled in schools in 
your State before i860? What part is enrolled today? 

13. Make a study of educational journals and of teachers' associa- 
tions in your State prior to the Civil War. 

14. Explain the popularity of the district system of schools. Point 
out the advantages and the disadvantages of the system in the South 
before i860. What are its advantages and disadvantages today? 

15. Trace the development of the chief county school officer (super- 
intendent) in your State ; of the chief state school officer. Compare 
the duties of each of these officers today with the duties of corre- 
sponding officers in the South before i860. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Acts of the Legislature of the various States. Barnard, The American 
Journal of Education, 30 vols. Hartford, 1855-1881. Circulars of informa- 
tion, United States Bureau of Education : Blackmar, History of Federal 
and State Aid to Higher Education in the United States (Washingon, 1890) ; 
Bush, History of Education in Florida (Washington, 1889) ; Clark, His- 
tory of Education in Alabama (Washington, 1889) ; Fay, History of Edu- 
cation in Louisiana (Washington, 1898) ; Jones, Education in Georgia 
(Washington, 1889) ; Lane, History of Education in Texas (Washington, 
1903) ; Mayes, History of Education in Mississippi (Washington, 1899) ; 
Meriwether, History of Higher Education in South Carolina (Washington, 
1899) ; Merriam, Higher Education in Tennessee (Washington, 1893; ; 
Shinn, History of Education in Arkansas (Washington, 1900) ; Smith, 
History of Education in North Carolina (Washington, 1888). Calvin, 
Popular Education in Georgia. Augusta, 1870. Cubberley, Public Educa- 
tion in the United States. Boston, 1919. Ficklen, "The Origin and Develop- 
ment of the Public-School System in Louisiana," in the Report of the 
United States Commissioner of Education, 1894-1895, Vol. H. Heatwole, 
A History of Education in Virginia. New York, 1916. Journals of the 
Legislature of the various States. Knight, The Influence of Reconstruc- 
tion on Education in the South. New York, 1913. Knight, Public School 
Education in North Carolina. Boston, 1916. Lewis, Report on Public 
Education in Georgia. Milledgeville, i860. Maddox, The Free School 
Idea in Virginia before the Civil War. New York, 1918. Poore, The 
Federal and State Constitutions, 2 vols. Washington, 1877. Public Docu- 
ments of the various States. Weeks, History of Public School Education 
in Alabama. Washington, 1915. Weeks, History of Public Education in 
Arkansas. Washington, 191 2. Weeks, History of Public School Education 
in Tennessee. Washington, 191 7, 



CHAPTER VIII 
SCHOOL PRACTICES BEFORE 1860 

Outline of the chapter, i. From the available materials of the period 
a fairly adequate account may be had of school practices in the South 
before i860. 

2. The curriculum was narrow, the three R's occupying the first 
places of importance. In these subjects a great variety of books were 
used, and uniformity of texts was practically unknown. The "Old 
Blue Back Speller," the "New England Primer," and the "New York 
Reader " were very popular. 

3. Arithmetic occupied an important place, and texts by Colburn, 
Pike, and Jess were most widely used. 

4. Geography was slow to find a distinct place in the curriculum, 
but texts on the subject were often used as readers, histories, and 
moral guides. Numerous texts were used, but thgse of Morse, Olney, 
and Peter Parley (Goodrich) were most frequently found. 

5. History and grammar were tardily recognized for proper places 
in the school. Texts on history were used primarily as reading ma- 
terials. Texts on grammar were regarded as intricate and dry, and 
the purpose and methods of teaching this subject differed greatly from 
present-day practices. 

6. Toward the close of the ante-bellum period, and especially during 
the war, the Southern States became interested in publishing their 
own textbooks, because of the sectionalism of that period. 

7. Incompetent teachers, wasteful methods, harsh discipline, un- 
comfortable buildings, and meager equipment were among the defects 
of the schools. Many of the practices of the time are described by 
contemporary accounts. 

8. After i860, improvements appeared in educational practices, but 
only after many years of toil and determination to restore resources 
and the confidence of the people. 

The practical operation of any educational system is more 
difficult to describe than the theory and laws on which the system 

269 



2 70 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

is built, and the more remote the period the more difficult is an 
adequate and safe description of its practices. A scarcity of 
concrete illustrative materials of no more remote days than the 
ante-bellum period makes it difficult to give a fair description of 
actual practices of that time. The poor system of bookkeeping then 
in use makes it practically impossible to give an intelligible ac- 
count of the fiscal features of the ante-bellum schools ; and local 
school officials, either ignorantly or negligently, often failed to 
record in permanent form details which, apparently unimportant 
then, now appear important and of great value historically and 
for purposes of comparison. Moreover, at that time the reports 
of state educational officers were irregular and indefinite, and 
those which are accessible are frequently unreliable and there- 
fore unsatisfactory sources of information. However, a careful 
study of the few illustrative materials available affords the basis 
of a suggestive and a more or less adequate account of educa- 
tional practices in the South before i860. In such an account 
the curriculum, or course of study, schoolbooks, material equip- 
ment, teachers anS methods of teaching, and school customs 
are among the more interesting features. The principles and 
practices of actual school support in the various Southern 
States during the period under consideration were noted in the 
preceding chapter. 

The curriculum of the common school of the Southern States 
during the ante-bellum period was very narrow, consisting of the 
minimum essentials of an English education — reading, writing, 
arithmetic, and spelling. These monopolized the course of study 
for many years and were the subjects on which teachers were 
usually examined, when they were examined at all. Calvin H. 
Wiley, North Carolina's ante-bellum superintendent of public 
instruction, in the fifties urged that the female teachers of that 
State be examined on these subjects and that the male teachers 
be required, in addition, to show a knowledge of and ability to 
teach grammar and geography. This requirement was not gen- 
eral, however, in the South. Geography, history, and grammar 



SCHOOL PRACTICES BEFORE 1860 271 

were looked upon as advanced subjects and found places in 
the curriculum very tardily, and texts in geography and history, 
when used at all, served as reading books rather than as guides 
for geographical and historical study. 

Uniformity of texts was practically unknown ; and one of 
the evils which naturally resulted was "the multiplicity and fre- 
quent change" of books which accumulated expenses on the 
parents and guardians and retarded the progress of the school 
work. Teachers were often embarrassed by having large schools 
with nearly every child in a separate class. Those who had an 
interest in educational advancement occasionally urged the adop- 
tion of uniform texts in an effort to drive out poor books, to pre- 
vent frequent and unwise changes, and to aid in developing a 
form of student classification and grading which would not 
otherwise have been possible at that time. 

Although so-called uniform texts were not adopted in any 
Southern State before the war, an occasional " list " was suggested 
or recommended. At a convention of school officials and teachers 
in Augusta County, Virginia, in 1853, the following books were 
recommended for use in the common schools of that State : Web- 
ster's Speller, McGuffey's or Mandeville's Readers, Brown's or 
Bailey's English Grammar, Mitchell's or Smith's Geography, and 
Colburn's or Davies's Arithmetics. In the report of Superintend- 
ent Wiley in the same year the following books were recommended 
for the schools of North Carolina: Webster's Speller, Wiley's 
"North Carolina Reader," Parker's First and Second Readers, 
Davies's Arithmetics, Emerson's Arithmetic, Mitchell's "Interme- 
diate Geography" (North Carolina Edition), Bullion's Grammar, 
and Worcester's Comprehensive Dictionary. 

Perhaps the nearest approach to a semiuniformity of texts for 
use in the public schools was made in Arkansas, where, under an 
act of 1843, provision was made for purchasing books for distri- 
bution in the counties in proportion to the scholastic popula- 
tion. From the report of the auditor it appears that the " United 
States Primer," Webster's "Spelling Book,' Goodrich's Readers, 



2 72 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

Willard's "History of the United States," Morse's Geography, 
Davies's Arithmetics, Gallaudet's Dictionary, and Bullion's "Eng- 
lish Grammar " were used in that State, The books were not dis- 
tributed free of charge, however, nor does it appear that the 
method of distribution, through the auditor's office, was a success. 
In 1855 Superintendent Perry, of Alabama, recommended a long 
list of books for the children of that State and professional books 
for the teachers. The books for the children were similar to those 
used elsewhere ; those recommended for the teachers were Potter 
and Emerson's "The School and the Schoolmaster," Page's "The- 
ory and Practice of Teaching," Abbott's "The Teacher," Alcott's 
"Slate and Blackboard Exercises," Mayhew's "Popular Educa- 
tion," Mansfield's "American Education," and Barnard's "School 
Architecture." From the beginning of the primary-school system 
in Virginia books and writing materials were furnished free to all 
children whose parents were unable to bear such an expense, and 
this practice prevailed also in other Southern States. 

The list mentioned above by no means included all the texts 
which were actually in use in the South before i860. In addition 
to Webster's famous book, which was most extensively used not 
only in the Southern States but in all sections of the country before 
the war, the following spellers were also widely used : Barry's 
Speller, Burton's Speller, Cobb's Speller, Comly's Speller, Dil- 
worth's Speller, Emerson's Speller, "The Eclectic Speller," Ely's 
Speller, Fenning's Speller, Hazen's Speller and Definer, Kirby's 
Speller, Marshall's Speller, Mayo's Speller, Murray's Speller, "The 
National Spelling Book," "The United States Speller," "The 
Universal Speller," "The Union Spelling Book," Town's "Spell- 
ing Book," "The Western Speller," and Wood's Speller. 

Spelling books during the ante-bellum period were not in- 
tended or used primarily for the purpose of teaching spelling, 
but served the threefold purpose of readers, moral instructors, 
and guides. The most famous of all the texts on the subject was 
Webster's, popularly known as the "Old Blue Back," which was 
in wide use in the schools of this country until comparatively 



SCHOOL PRACTICES BEFORE 1860 273 

recent years. Even young people of today are familiar with or 
have heard of this celebrated book. It was planned after Dil- 
worth's Speller (a well-known English spelling book) and was 
originally bound on the back with leather and on the sides with 
thin pieces of oak which were covered with a blue paper, from 
which it got its persisting name. For two decades after its appear- 
ance the book bore the high-sounding title of "The First Part of 
a Grammatical Institute of the English Language." Later the name 
was changed to the "American Spelling-Book," and later still to 
"The Elementary Spelling-Book." Each printer who published 
the book varied minor parts of his issue according to his own 
fancy: one issue carried a portrait of "The Father of his Coun- 
try," and another bore a woodcut of the author which "made 
him look like a porcupine." When the first edition was in prepara- 
tion Webster had to give bond to guarantee the printers against 
any possible losses. But in 181 7 one publisher gave the author 
"three thousand dollars a year for his term of copyright, and 
another gave forty thousand for the privilege of publishing editions 
for fourteen years." At the time of the author's death, in 1842, a 
million copies of the book were being distributed annually. 

The influence of this book can hardly be estimated. Spelling 
became a fad almost simultaneously with its appearance, and 
"spelling bees" soon came to be a very popular school exercise. 
In the South, where schoolbooks were scarce, the "Old Blue Back" 
was often the first book put into the hands of the child when he 
entered school and often was the only book many children ever 
studied. It served as primer, speller, reader, and moral guide. 
The reading lessons in the book were intended "to combine, with 
the familiarity of objects, useful truth, and practical principles." 
A moral catechism on humility, revenge, industry, sobriety, 
pride, honesty, and other subjects, and short stories (each with a 
moral appended) were other features of the book.^ 

Comly's "A New Spelling-book," published at Philadelphia in 
1806, in its use in the South was second to the "Old Blue Back." 

^Johnson, Old-time Schools and School-books. 



2 74 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

Comly's spelling book, also was intended to serve as both a reader 
and speller. The reading matter was of a more or less serious 
nature, which was true of nearly all schoolbooks of the period. 
One of the first thoughts which the youth met in Comly's book 
was, ''All of us, my son, are to die." Another speller which found 
extensive use in the South before the war was Hazen's ''Symbolical 
Speller and Definer," which appeared in 1829, The principle on 
which this book was prepared was Verba explicantur symbolis, 
and the work was obviously intended to supplant certain old- 
fashioned spellers in which difficult words occurred "before the 
pupils could acquire sufficient knowledge of letters to read them 
with facility." The principle of pictorial representation was also 
used in the book, and connected with each picture were several 
words which rimed with the name of the object represented. Cer- 
tain advantages were claimed for this arrangement, since "in 
learning to spell, the sounds of the letters and the forms of the 
words are the chief objects of recollection." 

Among the primers which were most widely used in the South 
before the war were the following: "The American Primer," "The 
Baltimore Primer," Cobb's Primer, Hanson's "Symbolical 
Primer," "The Juvenile Primer," "The New York Primer," 
"The New England Primer," "The Philadelphia Primer," "The 
Union Primer," "The United States Primer," "The Washington 
Primer," Webster's Primer, and Worcester's Primer. Of these 
"The New England Primer" was for many generations the most 
popular. It found extensive use in the primary schools through- 
out all sections of the country and was in use in several of the 
Southern States after it had fallen into neglect in other sections. 
This book was probably in use in New England as early as 1690. 
It went through many editions and served also as a type for a 
variety of other similar primers. Some of these varied the illustra- 
tions, the quotations, and the moral tales in which the original 
abounded, though now and then direct copying from it appeared 
in the less celebrated ones. For example, "The American Primer," 
which was published in Norfolk, Virginia, in 1803, and which 



SCHOOL PRACTICES BEFORE 1860 275 

became more or less popular in the South, followed ''The New 
England Primer" very closely in several places, 

''The New England Primer" began with the alphabet, which 
was followed by easy syllables and then by syllables and words of 
increasing difficulty. The remainder of the book was largely "a 
religious and moral miscellany of verse and prose" collected 
from a great variety of sources. Prominent in this miscellany 
was a "picture alphabet — a series of twenty-four tiny pictures, 
each accompanied by a two-line or three-line jingle." This riming 
method of teaching was very old, perhaps much older than "The 
New England Primer." The book went through many editions, 
which were varied from time to time, and had a long and wide use. 
The towns discarded it first, but it continued to be used in the 
country districts late into the nineteenth century. It was reported 
in use in several counties in Virginia in the forties, and other 
States were also using it then and later. The total sales of this 
little book were estimated at three million copies. "The Ameri- 
can Primer," a little book of seventy-five pages, was also exten- 
sively used in the South before the war. The reading lessons 
which it contained consisted of short stories which illustrated 
obedience, goodness, love, mercy, forgiveness, and fondness for 
school, for books, for parents and playmates. It also contained 
religious verse and numerous moral tales. 

The list of reading books in use in the South before i860 was 
even larger than the number of primers. Reading, together with 
writing and ciphering, occupied the major portion of the curricu- 
lum during that time, and almost any printed matter which could 
be furnished the children served as a textbook on the subject. 
Some of the materials reported as readers were Bingham's "Amer- 
ican Preceptor," Blair's "Reading Exercises," Baxter's "Call," the 
Bible and Sabbath-school books. Cabinet Library, Class Read- 
ers, Child's Library, "Child's Books," "Child at Home," Cobb's 
"Reading Books," "Columbian Orator," "Come and Welcome 
to Christ," Edgeworth's "Early Lessons," "Eclectic Reader," 
Emerson's Readers, "Evening Entertainment," "Fascinating 



2 76 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

Companion," "Family Story Book," Hall's "Western Reader," 
Hervey's "Meditations," "Juvenile Readers," Kay's Reader, 
McGuffey's Readers, Mandeville's Readers, "Moral Instruc- 
tor," "Mother at Home," Murray's "English Reader, Introduc- 
tion and Sequel," "National Reader," "New England Reader," 
"The New York Readers" (Nos. i, 2, and 3), "New York Ex- 
positor," New Testament, "Orator's Assistant," "Panorama of 
Arts," "Parent's Cabinet," Parley's "Tales," Parley's Reader, 
"Popular Lessons," "Pleasing Companion," "Pilgrim's Progress," 
"Robinson Crusoe," Scott's "Lessons," "Southern Reader," The 
Spectator, Town's "Little Thinker," United States Constitution, 
"United States Readers," "The Virginian Orator," and many 
others. Of these Murray's Reader (published at Haverhill, Mas- 
sachusetts in 1825), "The New York Reader," No. 3 (published 
in New York in 1828), and the McGuffey series of readers 
were the most widely used. 

The ambition of all so-called "readers" of the period was to 
assist young people to read with propriety and effect, to improve 
their language and their sentiments, "and to inculcate some 
of the most important principles of piety and virtue." Purity, 
propriety, and elegance of diction frequently characterized many 
of the selections chosen for some of the readers in use. The 
contents usually included narrative selections, didactic pieces, 
argumentative selections, descriptive selections, pathetic pieces, 
dialogues, and public speeches. "The New York Reader," No. 3, 
contained selections from the Proverbs, the Psalms, Hume "On 
History," select sentences concerning "God and his attributes," 
the story of Cain and Abel, the story of Job, and Pope's " Univer- 
sal Prayer." Some of the readers contained instructions on the 
principles of good reading, treating the "proper loudness of the 
voice," distinctiveness, due degree of slowness, pronunciation, 
emphasis, tones, pauses, and the proper manner of reading verse. 

Because of the high esteem in which mathematics was held as a 
practical science, arithmetic occupied a very important place in 
the curriculum and, as in other subjects, a great variety of texts 



SCHOOL PRACTICES BEFORE 1860 277 

were in use. Among those most frequently reported were texts 
by the following authors: Adams, Beattie, Colburn, Daboll, 
Davies, Dilworth, Emerson, Fenn, Fenning, Fisher, Fowler, 
Gough, Jess, Jones, Niles, Park, Pike, Ray, Root, Slocumb, Smi- 
ley, Smith, Stockton, Tower, Walkingham, Walsh, Webster, and 
Willard. Of these books Colburn's "First Lesson in Intel- 
lectual Arithmetic" (which appeared in 182 1), Thomas Dil- 
worth 's "The Schoolmaster's Assistant" (which appeared earlier), 
and the work of Pike and of Jess (earlier still) were most exten- 
sively used in the South during the ante-bellum period. 

Colburn's "First Lesson? in Intellectual Arithmetic" possessed 
a merit not always found in many texts of the time. The book 
was the result of practical work which the author had done as a 
teacher of mathematics, and had been tested in actual use before 
publication. Barnard's American Journal of Education said 
in 1856 that the book "enjoyed a more enviable success than 
any other schoolbook ever published. ... It has been said to be 
'the only faultless schoolbook that we have.' It has certainly 
wrought a great change in the manner of teaching arithmetic." 
Dilworth's "The Schoolmaster's Assistant" appeared much 
earlier than Colburn's arithmetic and went hurriedly through 
many editions. Two other arithmetics, however, were even more 
popular than Colburn's and Dilworth's, These were "A New and 
Complete System of Arithmetic," by Nicholas Pike, and "The 
American Tutor's Assistant," by Zachariah Jess. 

The work of Pike, first published in 1788, was the jfirst book 
of "its kind composed in America." It was very comprehensive 
and exhaustive, became popular immediately, and went through 
many editions. It was very widely used in the South. In 1840 
the book was reported in use in half the counties of Virginia, and 
about the same time a book store in Raleigh advertised that one 
hundred copies had just been received for sale. 

The comprehensive character of the book may be seen from the 
following partial list of subjects which were treated in it, in addi- 
tion to the usual arithmetic processes : extraction of the biquadrate 



278 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

root ; pensions in arrears at simple interest ; barter, alligation 
medial ; pendulums ; a perpetual almanac ; the time of the moon's 
southing ; how to find the year of indiction ; how to find the value 
of gold in the currency of New England and of Virginia ; a table of 
values of the sundry pieces in the several States ; comparisons 
of the American foot with the foot of other countries ; table of the 
dominical letters according to the cycle of the sun ; to find the 
dominical letter according to the Julian and Gregorian methods ; 
a table by which Easter could be calculated from the year 1753 
to 4199; plane geometry; ''plane rectangular trigonometry"; 
" oblique angular trigonometry " ; algebra ; conic sections ; and, 
finally, "the proportions and tonnage of Noah's ark." Some of 
the exercises of the student were of riddlelike character : 

How many barley-corns will reach from Newburyport to Boston, it 
being forty-three miles ? 

How many days since the commencement of the Christian era? 

How many minutes since the commencement of the American War, 
which happened on April 19, 1775? 

How many seconds since the commencement of the war, April 19, 
1775, and the independence of the United States of America, which 
took place July 4, 1776? 

A bullet is dropped from the top of a building, and is found to 
reach the ground in i| seconds ; required its height. 

In what time will a musket-ball, dropped from the top of a steeple 
484 feet high, come to the ground? 

Nine gentlemen sat at an inn, and were so pleased with their host, 
and with each other, that, in a frolic, they agreed to tarry as long as 
they, together with their host, could sit every day in a different posi- 
tion ; pray how long, had they kept their agreement, would their frolic 
have lasted? Answer 994i|ff days. 

A gentleman making his addresses In a lady's family, who had five 
daughters : She told him that their father had made a will, which 
imported that the first four of the girls' fortunes were together to 
make £50,000, the last four £66,000, the three last with the first 
£60,000, the three first with the last £56,000, and the two first with 
two last, £64,000, which, if he would unravel, and make it appear 
what each was to have, as he appeared to have a partiality for 



SCHOOL PRACTICES BEFORE 1860 279 

Harriet, her third daughter, he should be welcome to her : pray, what 
was Miss Harriet's fortune? Answer, £10,000. 

An ignorant fop wanted to purchase an elegant house ; a facetious 
gentleman told him he had one which he would sell him on these mod- 
erate terms, viz. that he should give him a penny for the first door, 2d 
for the second, 4d for the third, and so on, doubling at every door, 
which were 36 in all : It is a bargain, cried the simpleton, and here is a 
guinea to bind it ; pray what would the house have cost him ? Answer, 
£286,331,153, IS, 3d. 

Jess's work, which first appeared in 1798, was also popular in 
the Southern States, was widely circulated there and had a long 
career. Among the subjects found in the work were numeration, 
addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division of integers ; 
compound addition ; compound addition, subtraction, multipli- 
cation, and division of Federal money ; single rule of three and 
double rule of three; simple interest and compound interest; 
practice ; decimal fractions ; tare and tret, equation, barter, loss 
and gain, and fellowship exchange; vulgar fractions; single 
and double rule of three in vulgar fractions ; square root ; cube 
root ; discount ; annuities, and annuities in reversion ; perpetuities, 
and perpetuities in reversion ; and, finally, there was a collection 
of "promiscuous questions." Some of the problems set for the 
pupils were as follows : 

A Virginia merchant sent goods to Norway worth 2743 dol. 80 cts. 
currency ; how many rix dollars, at 80 cts. each, must he receive ? 

A merchant of North Carolina shipped a quantity of flour, which 
when disposed of, amounted to 1186 millreas, 500 reas ; and received 
in return 1 7 pipes of wine ; what was it per pipe, a millrea reckoned 
at I dol. ? 

When first the marriage knot was ty'd 

Between my wife and me ; 

My age was to that of my bride. 

As three times three to three ; 

But now when ten and half ten years, 

We man and wife have been. 

Her age to mine exactly bears 

As eight is to sixteen ; 



28o PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

Now tell, I pray, from what I've said. 

What were our ages when we wed? 

f Thy age, when married, must have been 
Answer-* 



{ 



Just forty-five ; thy wife's fifteen. 

What difference is there between 6 dozen dozen, and half a dozen 
dozen? Answer, 792. 

How may 4 nines be placed so as to denote exactly 100 ? Answer, ggf . 

What is the compound interest of one farthing, at 5 per cent, per 
annum, from the Christian era to the end of the year 1790? Answer, 
upward of 88424000000000000000000000000 miUions of pounds. 

The monopoly of the curriculum by reading, writing, and arith- 
metic prevented geography from early acquiring the high position 
which it now occupies in the course of study of the elementary 
school. Even the higher schools neglected it as a separate study 
until the nineteenth century, and its value as an agency for vital- 
izing other related subjects was not early recognized. When it 
first appeared in the lower schools it was not treated as a separate 
subject nor was it intended, as it is today, to impart a knowledge 
of world movements, of current events, or of the economic and 
commercial relations of man. The little geographical information 
that was taught was given largely as a memory exercise, and the 
possession of geographical facts was considered an achievement 
equal to the ability to "do sums" rapidly or to "flourish cork- 
screws" in writing. Books on the subject of geography served as 
readers rather than as texts on the subject of the earth as the 
home of man. Frequently, however, geographies were used in the 
capacity of both readers and histories, and not a few of the texts 
in use in ante-bellum days could have served one purpose quite 
as well as another. There is evidence also that the early books on 
geography were intended to furnish moral instruction. 

As readers and as histories a great many texts on geography 
were in use in the South as in other sections of the country before 
the war. Books by the following authors seem to have been 
most widely used : Adams, Carey, Cummings, Frazer, Guthrie, 
Huntingdon, Monteith, Moss, Morse, Olney, "Peter Parley," 



SCHOOL PRACTICES BEFORE 1860 281 

Smiley, Smith, Willett, Willard, and Woodbridge. Of these the 
works of Morse, Olney, and "Peter Parley" seem to have been 
most popular in the South. 

The pioneer American geography was the work of Jedidiah 
Morse, who published his first book on the subject in 1784, at 
the age of twenty-three. ''The American Universal Geography," 
which was ''a view of the present state of all the empires, king- 
doms, states, and republics in the known world, and of the United 
States in particular," appeared in 1793 and had an extensive 
circulation. 

In the preface of this book Morse stated that Guthrie's "Geo- 
graphical Grammar" stood highest in the estimation of the public 
of any work on geography and that it had had a very extensive sale 
in America. With all its merits, however, he thought that work 
had two capital faults : it was deficient and false in its descriptions 
of the United States and gave an unwieldy and disproportionate 
account to Great Britain. Moreover, Morse thought the propriety 
of importing any schoolbooks from England very questionable, 
as the American people ran the hazard of having children imbibe 
from such books the monarchial ideas and the national prejudices 
of the English. The purpose of his book may be seen in the fol- 
lowing, which appeared in the introduction : 

No national government holds out to its subjects so many alluring 
motives to obtain an accurate knowledge of their own country, and of 
its various interests, as that of United States. By the freedom of our 
elections, public honors and public ofifices are not confined to any 
one class of men, but are offered to merit, in whatever rank it may 
be found. To discharge the duties of public office with honor and 
applause, the history, policy, commerce, productions, particular advan- 
tages and interests of the several States, ought to be thoroughly under- 
stood. It is obviously wise and prudent then to initiate our youth in 
the knowledge of these things, and thus to form their minds upon 
republican principles, and prepare them for further usefulness and 
honor. There is no science better adapted to the capacities of youth, 
and more apt to captivate their attention than geography. An acquaint- 
ance with this science, more than with any other, satisfies that pertinent 



282 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

curiosity which is the predominating feature of the youthful mind. 
It is to be lamented that this part of education has been so long 
neglected in America. Our young men universally, have been much 
better acquainted with the geography of Europe and Asia than with 
that of our own States and country. The want of suitable books on 
this subject has been the cause, ... of the shameful defect in our 
education. Till within a few years, we have seldom pretended to write, 
and hardly to think for ourselves. We have humbly received from Great 
Britain our laws, our manners, our books, and our modes of thinking, 
and our youth have been educated rather as the subjects of a British 
king, than as citizens of a free and independent republic. But the 
scene is now chartged. The revolution has been favorable to science in 
general ; particularly to that of the geography of our own country. 
In the following sheets the author has endeavored to bring this valuable 
branch of knowledge home to the common schools, and to the cottage 
firesides. . . . He has endeavored to accommodate it to the use of the 
schools, as a reading book, that our youth of both sexes, at the same 
time that they are learning to read, might imbibe an acquaintance with 
their country, and an attachment to its interests ; and, in that forming 
period of their lives, begin to qualify themselves to act their several 
parts in life, with reputation to themselves, and with usefuhiess to 
their country. 



The book contained treatments of astronomical geography, of 
the several astronomical systems of the world, of the planets, of 
the solar system, of the comets, of the fixed stars, of the earth, 
of the doctrine of the sphere, of the natural divisions of the 
earth, of North America, Danish America, the United States of 
America, South America, West India Islands, of Europe, of Asia, 
of Africa, and of "new discoveries." Each State or general 
division of the United States was discussed separately, in a man- 
ner not altogether unlike that of modern geographies, special 
attention being given, however, to such subjects as religion, 
military strength, manners and social customs, literature, educa- 
tional facilities, curiosities, constitution, history, and several other 
topics. The following excerpts, descriptive of certain Southern 
States, illustrate one interesting feature of the book : 



SCHOOL PRACTICES BEFORE 1860 283 

The North Carolinians are mostly planters, and live from half a 
mile to 3 and 4 miles from each other, on their plantations. They 
have a plentiful country — no ready market for their produce — little 
intercourse with strangers, and a natural fondness for society, which 
induce them to be hospitable to travellers. They appear to have Uttle 
taste for the sciences. 

In the flat country near the sea coast of North Carolina, the inhabit- 
ants during the summer and autumn, are subject to intermittent 
fevers, which often prove fatal. The countenances of the inhabitants 
during these seasons, have generally a pale yellowish cast, occasioned 
by the prevalence of bilious symptoms. 

The general topic of conversation among the men, when cards, the 
bottle, and occurrences of the day do not intervene, are negroes, the 
price of indigo, rice, tobacco, etc. . . . Pohtical inquiries, and philo- 
sophical disquisitions are attended to but by a few men of genius and 
industry, and are too laborious for the minds of the people at large. 
. . . Temperance and industry are not to be reckoned among the 
virtues of the North Carolinians. The time which they waste in drink- 
ing, idling and gambling, leaves them very little opportunity to improve 
their plantations or their minds. The improvement of the former is 
left to their overseers and negroes ; the improvement of the latter is 
too often neglected. . . . 

We are told that a strange and very barbarous practice prevailed 
among the lower class of people before the Revolution in the back 
parts of Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia ; it was called 
gouging, and was neither more nor less than a man, when boxing, 
putting out the eye of his antagonist with his thumb. How quick, 
under a mild government, is the reformation of manners! We have 
lately been told that in a particular county, where, at the quarterly 
court twenty years ago, a day seldom passed without ten or fifteen 
boxing matches, it is now a rare thing to hear of a fight. 

There is no peculiarity in the manners of the inhabitants of this 
State [South Carolina] except that arises from the mischievous in- 
fluence of slavery; and in this, indeed, they do not differ from the 
inhabitants of other Southern States. . . . The Carolinians sooner 
arrive at maturity, both in their bodies and minds, than the natives 
of cold cliniates. They possess a natural quickness and vivacity of 
genius, superior to the inhabitants of the North ; but too generally 
want that enterprise and perseverance which are necessary for the 
highest attainments in the arts and sciences. . . . There are not a 



2 84 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

few instances, however, in this State, in which genius has been united 
with apphcation, and the effects of their union have been happily 
experienced, not only by this State, but by the United States. . . . 
Many of the inhabitants spare no pains nor expense in giving the 
highest polish of education to their children, by enabling them to 
travel, and by other means attainable to those who have but moderate 
fortunes. 

The book also treated the educational and literary conditions 
in the various States, though not always accurately. One of the 
most interesting treatments of this subject was the account of 
the educational legislation which Jefferson proposed for Virginia 
in 1779, concerning which Morse said: 

The excellent measures for the diffusion of useful knowledge, which 
the forementioned bill proposes, have not yet been carried into effect. 
And it will be happy if the great inequality in the circumstances of 
the citizens — the pride, the independence, and the indolence of one 
class and the poverty and depression of the other — do not prove 
insuperable difficulties in the way of their universal operations. 

The geography of Jesse Olney was also widely used in the South 
prior to the war. In 1828 he published his "Geography and 
Atlas," which passed through numerous editions, some of which 
numbered eighty thousand copies. This book and others by the 
same author were at once accepted as standard works on the sub- 
ject and found a place in all the schools of the country. For 
forty years or more they had a large place in the schools of the 
South. Moreover, they helped greatly in changing the purpose 
and methods of teaching geography. Olney, who was a prac- 
tical teacher, expressed disapproval of many of the geographies 
then in use, which ''began with an exposition of the science 
of astronomy, and, making the center of the solar system the 
initial point, developed the scheme until it finally reached the 
earth." Largely through the influence of Olney's books this 
method was reversed. He insisted on beginning in the com- 
munity in which the pupils lived and on making "clear by lucid 



SCHOOL PRACTICES BEFORE 1860 285 

definitions the natural divisions of land and water, illustrating 
each instance by the use of maps." He sought to make the surface 
of the earth familiar to the child by using as much concrete and 
illustrative material as possible. Theoretic geography soon gave 
place to the modern descriptive science. Olney was, therefore, 
one of the first teachers in this country to adopt the Pestalozzian 
principles in the teaching of the subject and to initiate the idea 
of ''home" geography. 

In the introduction to his "Practical System of Modern Geog- 
raphy" the author held that children can learn geography at a 
very early age. But most of the books of the time, he states, 
began with definitions, which, to be understood, required a degree 
of knowledge on the subject never possessed by the beginner. 
Children should not be made to commit definitions to memory, 
but should be taught "by the eye," through the use of maps, 
pictures, and diagrams. "The map is to geography what orthog- 
raphy is to reading," and the child must not only understand 
its use but must have an intimate knowledge of its parts before 
he can acquire the proper understanding of the subject. The map 
should, therefore, be the first lesson in geography. Moreover, the 
author said that instead of introducing the beginner at once 
to astronomical geography he should begin "with the town in 
which he lives"; this was the natural as well as the "philosoph- 
ical method " of teaching the subject. On all subjects " the learner 
must make himself master of simple things before he can under- 
stand complex ones." 

"Peter Parley's" "Method of Telling about Geography to 
Children," which was written almost entirely in simple, colloquial 
style, was also popular in the Southern States. In this book 
geographical rimes were used. Another interesting feature of 
the book was the obvious and often labored attempts to teach 
lessons of morality and religion. In the chapter on Asia the 
following account of the flood appeared: 

The flood, or deluge, took place about 1650 after the world was 
created ; that is more than 4000 years ago. The history of the Jews, 



286 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

which is related in the Old Testament, is continued from the time of 
Noah to the birth of our Saviour, which was 1829 years ago. The 
history is exceedingly interesting, and is perfectly true. The early 
history of almost all other nations is a great part of it false ; but the 
Bible tells us nothing but what is worthy of belief. . , . The general 
lesson to be learnt from the Old Testament is this : that God has 
established a strict connexion, in this world, between obedience to 
him and happiness; and between disobedience and unhappiness. If you 
will carefully read the Old Testament you will find that while an 
individual, or a people, or a nation obeyed and served God, they were 
happy. When they departed from his laws and became wicked and 
disobedient, then they became miserable. The same thing is true now. 
Wicked nations and wicked peoples soon become unhappy while the 
good and virtuous generally live in peace. Such, the Bible teaches us, 
was the course of things in the early ages of the world; such it is 
now ; and such, doubtless, it will ever be. 

The next chapter told of the birth of Christ, who came "to dissi- 
pate this darkness which had gathered over the minds of men. . . . 
Let us never, never, forget to hold in deep reverence the name of 
the one who has been such a benefactor to the world. . . . Let us 
not only hold his mind in reverence, but let us cherish his doctrines 
in our hearts, and let us, as far as we may, copy his life and follow 
his example." In the concluding chapter the final sentences are: 
"Let us fear to do wrong, because God can punish us. Let us love 
to do right, because God will reward us." 

History also found a very late place in the elementary school, 
largely because the higher institutions were tardy in recogniz- 
ing its value in the course of study. Before 1850 the larger 
colleges of the country provided for instruction in history in 
connection with other subjects, usually philosophy and English, 
and when the subject first appeared in the lower schools it was 
used largely as reading material. Its value as a means of fur- 
nishing a broad interpretation of the world was not recognized, 
nor was it believed that history was capable of making direct 
appeal to human interests, to curiosity, to the imagination, or 
capable of developing enlightened patriotism or of strengthening 



SCHOOL PRACTICES BEFORE 1860 287 

intellectual habits. Many of the early texts contained neither 
maps nor illustrations. The function of early history-teaching 
was conceived as ethical and religious, though the methods used 
were often unsound for these purposes. 

The books on historical subjects most frequently reported in 
use in the schools of the South before the war were the works 
of Adams, Frost, Goldsmith, Goodrich (''Peter Parley"), Grim- 
shaw, Guernsey, Hale, Jesse, Millot, Pitkin, Pinnock, Webster, 
Willard, and Worcester. Ancient, medieval, European, universal, 
general, and ecclesiastical were adjectives which usually described 
the texts in use. Most of these books were often the merest out- 
lines, and this outline plan characterized many of the texts on the 
subject until near the close of the nineteenth century. Moreover, 
teachers were poorly prepared to teach history, and there was 
but little to recommend a place for it in the schools. Today a 
thoroughly prepared teacher is regarded as the first condition to 
adequate history-teaching ; and his qualifications include almost 
encyclopedic information, more or less practice in the use of 
historical evidence, the historical attitude, or fair-mindedness in 
handling historical material, and skill in narration and in properly 
marshaling historical facts. But poor texts, poorly trained 
teachers, and classrooms so inadequately equipped as never to 
suggest the subject were not likely to lead pupils to study history 
or to acquire the wholesome habit of reading historical material. 
And all these conditions prevailed in the ante-bellum days and 
even later. 

As late as 1821 the preface to one of the earliest books on 
history stated that ''while our schools abound with a variety of 
reading-books for children and youth, there has never yet ap- 
peared a compendious history of the United States fitted for our 
common schools." The following year Goodrich's "History of 
the United States" appeared, and while this text was popular and 
widely circulated, it too was deficient in illustrative material and 
continued so until 1832, although numerous editions of the work 
appeared in the meantime. In that year an improvement was 



288 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

made in the book. In the same year Noah Webster published a 
"History of the United States," in which he discussed, among 
other things, '' our English ancestry from the dispersion at Babel, 
to their migration to America." The work did not go beyond the 
adoption of the Federal Constitution because " an impartial history 
cannot be published during the lives of the principal persons con- 
cerned in the transactions related, without being exposed to the 
charge of undue flattery or censure ; and unless history is impar- 
tial, it misleads the student, and frustrates its proper object." A 
chapter on "Advice to the Young," intended to "serve, in a degree, 
to restrain some of the common vices of our country," showed that 
one important function of history, as of other subjects, was moral 
and religious. 

Grammar was not required in the ante-bellum schools of the 
South, the teachers were not examined on it, and the subject was 
therefore not widely taught. Textbooks on grammar did not, like 
geographies and histories, serve well as readers, and for this reason 
the subject was somewhat late in finding a place in the curriculum. 
The early texts were unduly intricate and difficult to explain or to 
understand, and the subject was regarded as meaningless and 
dreary. The prefaces of many of the early works were often 
apologetic and deplored the general lack of interest in it. Occasion- 
ally, however, county officials reported a few "grammar and 
geography pupils" in some of their schools, but for the few who 
were studying the subject numerous texts were reported. Among 
these were works by Ashe, Bingham, Boardman, Brown, Bullion, 
Comly, Frost, Greenleaf, Harrison, Hurd, Ingersol, Jandon, John- 
ston, Kirkman, Lowth, Murray, Merton, Olney, Sanford, Scott, 
Smith, Tower, and Webster. The works of Murray and of 
Kirkman seem to have been the most generally used in the South, 
though grammars by Bingham and Webster were also widely used 
for a time. 

Lindley Murray, who is known as " the father of English gram- 
mar," published his first book on grammar in 1795 while he was in 
England, where he had gone from New York in search of health. 



SCHOOL PRACTICES BEFORE 1860 289 

The book became popular immediately not only in England but 
in America, where it was so extensively circulated that Murray's 
name soon came to be a household word. Although it was a work 
of considerable merit for the time the book was severely criticized 
"for its obscurity, blunders, and deficient presentation of ety- 
mology." One of Murray's friends said to him, "Of all the con- 
trivances invented for puzzling the brain of the young, your 
grammar is the worst." It was not long, however, before Murray's 
"Grammar," "Exercises," and "Key" came to be regarded as 
standard texts, and they maintained that position for many years. 
Half the counties of Virginia in 1840 reported Murray's work in 
use, and about the same time a bookstore in Raleigh advertised 
seven hundred copies of "Murray's English Grammar, well bound 
in leather and offered at a very reduced price." The book went 
through fifty editions, and an abridgment of the original work 
had more than one hundred and twenty editions of ten thousand 
copies each. The primary purpose of this work was to teach the 
correct use of spoken and written language and to assist the more 
advanced pupils "to write with perspicuity and accuracy," but 
an obvious design of the book, as of many grammars of the period, 
was to furnish moral instruction, which was sought through the 
examples and exercises in the illustration of principles and rules. 
"^ Kirkman's "English Grammar," followed Murray's very closely 
in plan, but avoided some of the errors which the latter work 
contained. Kirkman's illustrations were apt and valuable in that 
they lent themselves to clearness and comprehension of the 
principles illustrated. The book sought to be "of practical utility 
in facilitating" the mental progress of youth, but it presented no 
attractive graces of style to charm, no "daring flights" to aston- 
ish, and no deep researches to gratify the literary connoisseur. It 
undertook, on the other hand, to make interesting and delightful a 
study which was regarded as tedious, dry, and irksome. In "Hints 
to teachers and private learners" the author said that he hoped 
to help abolish the absurd practice of causing learners to com- 
mit and recite definitions and rules "without any simultaneous 



290 



PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 



application of them to practical examples." The final instruc- 
tions to the young learner were : " Become learned and virtuous, 
and you will be great. Love God and serve him, and you will be 
happy." 

In the main the book sought to teach the pupils what they 
should not say rather than what they should say in speaking 
and writing. In one column appeared "improper" and in another 
the "correct" words, thus: 



aint 

haint 

taint 

baint 

maint 

waunt 

woodent 

mussent 

izzent 

wozzent 

hezzent 

doozzent 

tizzent 

whool 



are not 
have not 
'tis not 
are not 
may not 
was not 
would not 
must not 
is not 
was not 
has not 
does not 
'tis not 
who will 



Among the numerous provincialisms and vulgarisms which 
Kirkman said were common in the spoken language in New 
England and New York were the following: 



I be goin. He lives to hum. 
Hese been to hum this two 

weeks. 
You haddent ought to do it. 
Yes I had ought. 
Taint no better than hizzen. 
Izzent that are line writ well? 



I am going. He lives at home. 
He has been at home these two 

weeks. 
You ought not to do it. 
Certainly I ought. 
'Tis no better than his. 
Is not that line well written? 



The following errors were reported as common in Pennsylvania : 



SCHOOL PRACTICES BEFORE 1860 291 

I seen him. Have you saw him ? Yest, I have saw him wunst ; and 
that was before you seed him. I done my task. Have you did yours ? 
No, but I be to do it. I be to be there. He know'd me. Leave me be, 
for Ime afear'd. I wish I haddent did it ; howsumever, I don't keer ; 
they cant skeer me. Give me them there books. He ort to go ; so 
he ort. I diddent go to do it. Don't scrouge me. I know'd what he 
meant, but I never let on. 

The following expressions were mentioned, with their corrections, 
as belonging to Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, and Mississippi : 

Tote the wood to the river. Have you focht the water ? Carry the 
horse to water. He has run aginst a snag. Is that your plunder, 
stranger? I war thar, and I seen his boat was loaded too heavy. 
Whar you gwine ? Hese in cahoot with me. Did you get shet of your 
tobacca? Who hoped you sell it? 

/ In concluding this brief account of textbooks it should be 
noted that near the close of the ante-bellum period frequent com- 
plaints began to be heard against books which had been prepared 
and published in the North. The complaints were loudest against 
the books used as readers. As early as January, 1844, the South- 
ern Educational Journal, which is said to have been the first 
educational magazine published in Alabama, advertised a series of 
readers which "have been carefully revised and freed from all 
objectionable pieces." The objection to the readers then in use 
was that they were "made by people whose political institu- 
tions differ from ours, and thrown upon the children of the 
South, for their discriminating minds to peruse." At a meeting 
of the Southern Commercial Convention, held in Savannah in 
December, 1856, and composed of delegates from the Southern 
and Southwestern States, a committee was requested to take the 
subject of schoolbooks under consideration and to select and pre- 
pare a suitable series of books in "every department of study, 
from the earliest primer to the highest grade of literature and 
science, as shall seem to them best qualified to elevate and purify 
the education of the South." In this action appeared evidence of 



2 92 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

the growing sectionalism of the period. The feeling was that " We 
can, and we must print, publish, and teach our own books ; we 
must not permit our foes to compose our songs and prepare our 
nursery tales, reserving for ourselves only the privilege of fram- 
ing husky statutes, and holding commercial conventions."^ From 
that time until the outbreak of the Civil War efforts were increased 
in the South to prepare the texts used in that region and to 
encourage Southern publishing enterprises. And during the war 
the Southern States did all they could to supply their own books, 
though the undertaking was not always successful. 

Scribbling on the flyleaves of the books was an interesting 
juvenile practice then, as now, and was common in all sections of 
the country. The children did not confine their writing and 
their scribbling to slates and copybooks. The following are ex- 
amples of flyleaf scribblings which had wide currency:^. 

If this book should chance to roam 
Box its ears and send it home. 

Steal not this book, for if you do, 
Tom Harris will be after you. 

Steal not this book for fear of strife 
For the owner carries a big jackknife. 

Steal not this book my honest friend 
for fear the gallos will be your end 
The gallos is high, the rope is strong, 
To steal this book you know is wrong. 

Let every lerking thief be taught, 
This maxim always sure, 
That learning is much better bought 
Than stolen from the poor. 
Then steel not this book. 

iDe Bow's Review, Vol. XXII, pp. loo, 105,312. 

2 See Johnson, Old-time Schools and Schoolbooks, for other examples of 
this practice. 



SCHOOL PRACTICES BEFORE 1860 293 

Whosoever steals this 
Book away may 
Think on that great 
judgement day when 
Jesus Christ shall 
come and say 
Where is that book you 
stole away. 
Then you will say 
I do not know 
and Christ will say 
go down below, 

William Graham his Book 

God grant him grace therein to look, 

that he may run that blessed race 

that heaven may be his dwelling Place. 

This Book was bought for good Intent 
pray bring it home when it is lent. 

Francis Barton 
is my name america 
is my nation 
pitsfield is my 
dweling place 
and Christ is my 
salvation when 
i am dead and 
in my grave and 
all my bones are 
rotton its youl 
remember me or else 
i will be forgotten. 

If there should be another flood, 
Then to this book I'd fly ; 
If all the earth should be submerged 
This book would still be dry. 



294 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

Incompetent teachers, wasteful methods of teaching, harsh 
discipline, poor physical equipment, crude methods of adminis- 
tration, and lack of organization and of professional supervision 
were among the defects of the public schools of the ante- 
bellum period. This was before normal training had gained a 
place in this country, and professionally trained teachers and 
school officers were unknown. Here and there was found a man 
of culture, refinement, intelligence, and teaching skill, but these 
qualities were often lacking in most of the teachers of the time. 
As a rule the occupation of teaching was not held in high esteem. 

Many of the teachers were of the adventuresome type, migra- 
tory, odd in habits, and frequently questionable in conduct. Too 
often they had little if any training beyond that which they had 
received in schools of no higher grade than those in which they 
themselves taught. As a class they were generally loose and often 
immoral and lacking in professional standards. They were not 
only unable to inspire confidence in schools but doubtless served 
to bring education into public contempt and thus to retard its 
growth. Examinations for license or certificate to teach, when 
required at all, were usually oral and nominal and never pre- 
tended to be more than an attempt to pass on the applicant's 
moral character and his ability to conduct a school. And for 
these "adventure" and wandering teachers the minimum require- 
ments in these respects were not difficult to meet. Ability to 
teach meant primarily the ability to maintain order in school, 
and high moral and intellectual standards were not often de- 
manded or expected. Moreover, the local school officials or dis- 
trict trustees had to employ teachers who were available. The 
need for an adequate supply of well-qualified teachers was rela- 
tively as great then as now, though it was not so keenly felt. 
Short terms, poor wages, the practice of "boarding around," and 
other factors kept out the best and let in the poorest abilities for 
successful school work; The following letter, which appeared in 
a Virginia newspaper in 1843, bears on the point :^ 

^Maddox, The Free School Idea in Virginia before the Civil War, p. 109. 



SCHOOL PRACTICES BEFORE 1860 295 

Good men deem it disreputable ; think it too laborious ; or that it 
pays too little ; other men stay in it, because they can do nothing else ; 
they outbid good teachers ; they have some physical misfortune ; and 
parents have to send their children to somebody to get rid of them. 
... In the schoolhouse . . . there is often installed a man with a 
heart of stone and hands of iron ; too lazy to work, too ignorant to 
live by his wits in any other way, whose chief recommendation is his 
cheapness and whose chief capacity to instruct is predicated by his 
incapacity for other employment. ... Of the progress of the pupils 
in these temples of indolence but little inquiry is made. 

In their messages to the Legislatures the governors often 
referred to the poor condition of public education in their States 
and very frequently described the practices of the time. In 1840 
Governor Henagan, in his message to the Legislature of South 
Carolina, had the following to say about teaching and teachers : 

It is all important to elevate the character of the teachers in our 
free schools. The relation between teacher and pupil is of a most 
responsible nature, and involves all that importance which belongs to 
authority on the one side and submission on the other. In addition to 
literary quahfications, no one, if possible, should control the education 
of the youth of our State who is deficient in moral character. Who, I 
would ask, are the teachers of our free schools ? Are they men to 
whom the Legislature can commit, with confidence, the great business 
of education ? What is the amount of their literary qualifications, and 
what the tone of their morality? It is not my design to indulge in 
unnecessary remarks upon this subject, but truth requires me to say, 
that as a class they are grossly incompetent to discharge their high 
and sacred functions. So far. as my observation extends, with but few 
exceptions, they are very ignorant, and possess a very easy morality. 
With the poor pay allowed them, we cannot reasonably calculate upon 
a better state of things. The men who take charge of our pubHc 
schools, and accept so miserable a pittance as the reward of their 
labors, are they who cannot get employment on any other terms. 
Necessity forces them to make the offer of their services, and neces- 
sity forces the commissioners to accept them. It is now in South 
Carolina a reproach to be a teacher of a free school, as it is regarded 
as pritna facie evidence of a want of qualification. Men will not 



296 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

embark in the business of education from mere motives of patriotism. 
You cannot command superior talent and attainment, without adequate 
compensation. The lawyer, the physician, and the artisan, bestow not 
their labors gratuitously ; and upon what principle of reason or justice 
can it be expected, that he who has qualified himself, by years of 
severe toil for the most useful of all professions, shall labor at a rate 
which will not supply the wants of nature? . , . 

Methods of teaching were wasteful and ineffective. The pupils 
were not graded into groups of similar ages and abilities, and in- 
struction was therefore almost entirely individual. This was made 
necessary by the great variety of texts in the same subject, by the 
absence of helpful equipment (such as blackboards, which were 
late to appear in the South), and by ignorance of the value or 
possible use of group instruction. The teacher's time was given 
almost entirely to hearing lessons. The pupils received no in- 
struction from the teacher nor did they have the advantages that 
come from the group discussion in the modern school. The time of 
the pupils was thus largely wasted. School exercises were loose 
and slipshod and encouraged idleness and inattention. Studying 
or learning in the school was a passive process of the individual 
rather than an active social process of the group. In many cases 
the schools were known as "noisy schools" because the children 
studied their lessons aloud. Discipline was harsh and often 
cruel, and the routine was marked by multitudes of rules and 
penalties and the frequent use of the dunce blocks and foolscaps. 
The following editorials, which appeared in Virginia newspapers 
during the second quarter of the nineteenth century, are interest- 
ing reflections on practices of the time : ^ 

What are the beatitudes of a scholastic paradise? To be fagged, 
flogged, thumped, and coerced to mental labor and constrained in 
personal liberty. This may be all very proper and salutary (so is 
physic) but it is not happiness, and there is very, very rarely an 
instance of a boy, while he is in one of these prisons of the body, 

^Maddox, The Free School Idea in Virginia before the Civil War, 
pp. 114, IIS. 



SCHOOL PRACTICES BEFORE 1860 297 

and treadmills of the mind, who is not always wishing to get out of 
school and to get home. 

The memory of the pupil is burdened beyond what the understand- 
ing apprehends — a useless storing up of unmeaning facts. All the in- 
tellectual powers should be exercised, strengthened, and improved in 
harmony. There is too little effort made to excite a spirit of inquiry 
and to arouse the energies of the mind ; everything now proceeds on 
dull routine which gives the pupil a distaste for school and makes him 
disinclined to the pursuit of knowledge. . . . Let the instruction com- 
municated be adapted to the juvenile capacity of the pupil . . . and 
in a maimer calculated to interest him. 



Various features of public educational practices before i860 are 
further described in contemporary accounts of the ante-bellum 
schools. The following is a description of a school and school- 
master in South Carolina : ^ 

To those who have witnessed the state of things in Germany, in 
the Northern States of our confederacy, in any country in which edu- 
cation is made a department of the government, and compared it with 
the workings of the voluntary system ; who have seen in the one case, 
the pains taken in the preparation and trial of teachers, the atten- 
tion paid to school architecture, the attractions thrown around the 
schoolroom, and the appliances for facilitating both the business of 
learners and teachers ; and have contrasted the life, energy, and spirit 
everywhere displayed, with the stagnant uniformity which the other 
case as universally presents, there needs no other argument. They 
have but to look on this picture, and then on that. No wonder that 
our children, with their bright morning faces, so often realize Shaks- 
speare's description — "creeping like snail unwillingly to school." There 
is nothing in the associations of the place to invite either mind or 
body: "the dismal situation waste and wild," deserves the name which 
common consent has afifixed to it, and we cannot but admire the 
instinctive sense of fitness which has appropriated these dungeons of 
the young to localities which the plow has deserted to broomsedge 
and rabbits. 

^The Free School System of South Carolina. Columbia, 1856. (Author 
unknown.) 



298 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

We remember well the place where our own ideas were first taught 
to shoot — a log cabin, about eighteen by twenty, the chinks stopped 
with wood and daubed with clay. One end was almost wholly taken 
up in a fireplace, in the jambs of which, Noah and his family might 
have been comfortably accommodated. The chimney was a pen con- 
structed of billets of wood, and open on the side which faced the room, 
and, though protected from the fire by a thick lining of clay, the 
destructive element had contrived to elude all obstructions, and to 
open sundry communications, like that of Pyramus and Thisbe, with 
the oxygen without. The other end was adorned with a window, a 
genuine opening, which made no distinction between the air and light, 
and which scorned the modern contrivances by which one could be 
admitted to the exclusion of the other. Midway, on one side, was the 
door, creaking on wooden hinges, and near it, there hung, except when 
it was in use (and that was not seldom — for, in schoolboy phrase, it 
was kept hot), a forked stick, which served as a pass to all whom 
nature or idleness rendered uneasy in their straitened circumstances. 
No one ever dared to leave the room, however stringent the call, when 
that stick was missing from its peg. 

The other side was minus a log ; the vacant space being used as a 
light to the general writing-desk of the school, which consisted of a 
plank extended horizontally the whole length of the room. At a given 
signal, every member of our little establishment was required to take 
down his copy-book, put himself at this desk, and set about the serious 
operation of chirography. During this exercise, our backs were turned 
to the master ; and well do we recollect the generous indignation with 
which we looked upon his unfairness in stealing up behind us, slyly 
inspecting our performances, and, when they were not to his mind, 
giving us a demonstration of his presence, which left the fingers in 
unfortunate trim for further achievements. Our knuckles ache now, 
albeit more than thirty winters have passed over our heads, when we 
think of that formidable ruler. What multiplied the danger of slips 
(the technical name for every kind of blunder, from a mistake in spell- 
ing to a mistake in marking), was the manner in which we kept our 
ink. We had to put it in small vials, and as they were easily upset, 
we guarded against the chances of loss by putting in enough of cotton 
to absorb it. It not unfrequently happened, that in squeezing out the 
ink, a small fragment of the cotton would stick to the pen, and the 
consequence was a mark, a huge sprawl, which sad experience taught 
us was like the seal of fate. Our benches had the merit of training 



SCHOOL PRACTICES BEFORE 1860 299 

us to early habits of self-denial and mortification of the flesh ; we were 
sure that, for the first year of our schoolboy experience, our feet never 
rested on the floor when our thighs and legs made any assignable 
angle ; and the only relief we could obtain when the forked stick was 
missing, was to convert our bodies into an inclined plane, by propping 
the small of the back against the edge of the bench. 

Our dominie was, in many respects, a good-natured man, but even 
Job's patience could not have been proof against the trials he endured 
in the grievous misprints of text-books. By some odd fatahty, every 
hard sum in Daboll's Arithmetic had the answer wrong ; and we shall 
never forget the earnestness with which the good old man, after having 
tugged for hours over a tough question which had stumped our feebler 
capacities, would expatiate upon the blunders of DaboU, and the 
merits of Pike, the book which he had studied, and which he recom- 
mended to us as the very pink of perfection in figures. Misfortunes, 
however, never come single ; a copy of Pike was at length procured ; 
we prized it as a treasure, and bore it in triumph to our venerable 
teacher. His eyes ghstened with delight, and reciprocated his joy, in 
the hope that the course of arithmetic, unlike that of true love, 
might for once run smooth. fallacem hominum spem, jragilemqiie 
jortunam ! What was our consternation and amazement, when we 
found upon trial that we were still the sport of mischievous printers, 
and that every hard sum, even in Pike, had the answer wrong ! 

Our teacher was skilled in Latin ; but he would never consent to 
use any other copies of the classics but those of Clark, which con- 
tained the text and an English translation in parallel columns. In 
justice, however, to his prudence, we must say, that he always advised 
us to put our hands over the English when we were studying the 
Latin — a thing which we never failed to do when we went to recite, 
provided we had gotten the Enghsh by heart ; but, by a singular coin- 
cidence, whenever our memories were treacherous, our fingers were 
slippery. One exercise of the school, at least, was a hearty one — the 
closing labor of the day. At a given hour, the teacher vociferated at 
the top of his voice "spellings," and every urchin flew like lightning to 
his dictionary. The scene that ensued beggars all description ; it was 
not exactly like the roar of many waters, or the sound of mighty 
thunderings, but there was a noise — and such a noise as threw Bedlam 
into the shade, and what a glorious time was that when, at the close 
of the lesson there was a general rush, first for hats, caps, and bonnets, 
buckets, baskets, and bottles — and then for the door! 



300 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

This was what is called an old field school, and we have reason to 
suspect that such institutions are something more than traditions of 
the past. For two years we are sure that we never saw the face of a 
patron within the walls of the cabin. It was a wealthy neighborhood ; 
two of the trustees, if trustees they might be called, were worth a 
hundred negroes apiece ; and they had sons who were receiving the 
elements, on which a liberal education was to be afterwards engrafted. 
They had confidence in the master, and they left everything to his 
discretion. They had done their part when they employed him and 
gave him a place to teach in. There may be exceptions to this lax 
method of proceeding — cases in which a real supervision is exercised, 
but they are only exceptions, and not the rule. The voluntary system, 
for the most part, terminates the care and responsibilities of the neigh- 
borhood in the settlement of the teacher. He makes no complaints of 
his accommodations — it is not his place ; he is satisfied with whatever 
text-books are at hand, or those which are most familiar to himself, 
and institutes such discipline as his own indolence and desire of pleasing 
may suggest, without reference to the dispositions, capacities, and 
aptitudes of the child. 

A very popular practice wa.s that of ''turning out" the teacher 
a few days before the close of the term. The extract below is 
descriptive of the custom in South Carolina near the close of the 
first quarter of the nineteenth century, but the attempt here 
described was not so successful as were most attempts at "turning 
out" the teacher:^ 

This was at a time when it was the custom for the boys to turn out 
the master a day or two before the term of school ended. Schools were 
seldom taken up for a longer period than from three to six months. 
The first quarter of Mr. Quigley's school was about to terminate, and 
the big boys agreed to turn him out and make him treat before the 
beginning of the second quarter. It was the teacher's habit, every day, 
to take a walk of fifteen or twenty minutes, about eleven o'clock in 
the morning, calling to his desk some of the larger boys to keep order 
during his absence. No sooner had he descended the foot of the hill 
leading toward the spring than the three larger boys in the school 
began barricading the door. There was only one door to the cabin, 
and by taking up the benches, which were ten or fifteen feet long, 

iSims, The Story of my Life. New York, 1884. 



SCHOOL PRACTICES BEFORE 1860 301 

and crossing them diagonally, one to the right and another to the 
left, in the door, the benches projecting as much outside as inside the 
house, a complete barricade was formed which could easily be de- 
fended against assault from without. When the old gentleman saw 
what had been done he became perfectly furious. He was so violent 
that he easily intimidated the ringleaders. He swore that he would 
not give up, and would not treat, and that he was coming into the 
house whether or no. At last he commenced to climb on the roof of 
the house, and to throw a part of it off. It was covered with boards 
held on by poles. The ringleaders, seeing that he was sure to 
effect an entrance anyway, became intimidated, and agreed to remove 
the barricade if he would promise not to whip them. After parleying 
a little while, he promised that he would not flog the ringleaders. He 
was a man of the most violent temper, and, although fifty-five years of 
age, he was very strong and active. The ringleader of the gang was 
young Bob Stafford. He was tall, slender, and very strong ; but was 
evidently afraid of the teacher, and showed the white feather decidedly. 
As Mr. Quigley came in he walked up to young Stafford, who stood 
trembling in the middle of the room, and said : "Sir," as he drew his 
big fist back, "I have a great mind to run my fist right through your 
body ! " I had always thought Mr. Quigley would do whatever he 
said he would do, and I remembered with what horror I looked at 
Stafford, expecting every minute to see the old gentleman's fist come 
out through his back. 

The following account, from the same source as the preceding 
extract, shows that occasionally a really human-interest incident 
broke in upon the dull and tasteless routine of school life and 
''livened things up": 

The next school that I attended was taught by Mr. John E. San- 
derson, an Irishman. I was now seven years old. He taught school 
alternately in the Waxhaws and Hanging-Rock neighborhoods. The 
Waxhaws were in the northern part of the county, and the Hanging- 
Rock neighborhood in the southern. He was a fine teacher for arith- 
metic and writing. But he was very cruel, and whipped the boys 
often without any provocation at all. He thrashed them even when 
they were nearly grown, although he was a small man. But he was 
so violent in his temper and in the government of his school that 
the larger boys were afraid of him. There was only one day in the 



302 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

week when the school was happy, and that was Monday. He always 
got drunk on Saturday night, remained so all day Sunday, and came to 
school Monday morning as full as he could be, and then was always 
jolly and good-tempered. He would then pinch the girls' arms, and 
say witty things to the boys, and he never whipped anybody on 
Monday, so we were always happy on that day. But when Tuesday 
arrived he reverted to his old ways of severity. We had one poor 
fellow named Ike Tillman in school. He was an orphan, and was 
for many years under the tuition of Mr. Sanderson, and wherever he 
located a school, whether in one part of the county or the other, 
Ike Tillman always followed him. He was a bad boy without being 
very bad. He was very indolent, but not stupid. Mr. Sanderson had 
begun to whip him when he was seven or eight years old, and the boy 
had got so used to it that he expected to be flogged every day, even 
when he was eighteen years old and nearly six feet high. And he was 
seldom disappointed. At last one or two of the boys, about his own 
age, said to him, one day, "Ike, you're too big to be flogged; if I were 
you, I would show fight next time." 

"Well," he said, "boys, if you'll stand by me I will do it; but if 
you don't I can't afford it." 

They agreed to stand by him. Ike had a slate about twelve by ten 
inches, and the wooden frame had been broken and lost. The next 
day Mr. Sanderson called up Ike for a thrashing. Ike came up, with 
his slate in his hand, leaning it against his bosom, and he said : 

" Mr. Sanderson, you have been whipping me, sir, ever since I was a 
little boy. I am now a man. I will be d — d if I'll stand it any longer ! 
If you come a step nearer to me, I will split your d — d old head open 
with this slate ! " 

Mr. Sanderson was surprised, and he changed his tactics immedi- 
ately, and said : 

"Why, Ikey, why, you would not strike me with that slate, would 
you?" 

Ike said: "You come one step toward me and I'll split you open, 
clean down from your head to your backbone, and," said he, "these 
boys have promised to see me through the fight ! " 

"Well, Ikey," said Mr. Sanderson, "we have lived together a long 
time, but I don't think we can afford to be enemies ; and, if you are 
willing, we'll let by-gones be by-gones, and we'll enter from this day 
on into a new relationship." The old man saw that the game was up 
and too strong for him ; and, sure enough, so far as Ike Tillman and 



SCHOOL PRACTICES BEFORE 1860 303 

the larger boys were concerned, the old man was taught a lesson that 
he never forgot afterward. But he was so cruel to me and my little 
brother, and other little children, that I swore in my heart that, if I 
ever got to be a man, I would thrash him, if he were as old as 
Methuselah. I remember one Saturday meeting him on the road, near 
my father's house. My little brother and I were riding double on a 
little pony. He was riding in the opposite direction, meeting us. He 
was very drunk ; and, as soon as he got near enough to us, he com- 
menced striking at us with his stick, and really hurt my brother very 
much. We got away as fast as we could, and galloped home to tell my 
father what had happened. But Sanderson was the only teacher in the 
county, and if a boy didn't go to school to him there was no school 
for him to go to, and parents had to put up with his cruelties to their 
children, because they could not help themselves. They were afraid 
to speak to him about his treatment for fear he would dismiss their 
children from school. 

School practices in the South have recently undergone many 
improvements, but it was many years after the close of the war 
before any great advance was made in school equipment, in sup- 
port, in the preparation of an adequate supply of teachers, in 
textbooks, or in other parts of school work discussed in this 
chapter. The results of that conflict and the disturbing effects of 
the years which followed served to delay a wholesome development 
of public education. Gradually, however, new influences began to 
be felt. The ideas and methods advocated by Pestalozzi, which, 
with the exception of the Fellenberg manual-labor movement, 
were not generally adopted before i860, after that date began to 
appear through information concerning their use in European 
schools. This information had been circulated through official 
state reports and educational periodicals and through the reports 
of travelers who had visited and studied schools abroad. Improve- 
ments began slowly to be made in textbooks which helped to 
improve instruction, new subjects began to come in and to 
broaden the curriculum, attempts were made to grade the schools 
and the pupils into classes, and interest in high-school instruction 
slowly developed. The rise and development of normal schools 



304 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

and other teacher-training agencies helped to raise the standards 
of teaching and promoted the cause of education by basing instruc- 
tion on the principles of psychology. But these changes came 
in the South only after many years of toil and effort and of de- 
termination to rebuild the resources depleted by the war and to 
restore the public confidence which had been destroyed by the 
bitterness of reconstruction. The effect of those years, from 
which the South is only now recovering, will be studied in chapters 
that are to follow. 



QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION AND FURTHER STUDY 

1. Why was the ante-bellum curriculum confined almost exclu- 
sively to the three R's ? List the subjects required by law to be taught 
in the elementary school in your State and explain the purpose of 
each. Trace the expansion of the curriculum since i860. How has it 
expanded during the past twenty years? 

2 What are the advantages of uniform schoolbooks? What are 
the disadvantages ? How are textbooks adopted in your State for the 
elementary schools ? for the high schools ? 

3. What are the characteristics of a good spelling book? Com- 
pare the old method or methods of teaching spelling with the methods 
of teaching that subject today. What was the value of the old-time 
"spelling bees" or "spelling matches"? 

4. Compare the early readers with those in use in the schools of 
your State today. 

5. Why was arithmetic given such an important place in the ante- 
bellum curriculum? What was the purpose of teaching the subject? 
What are the characteristics of a good textbook on arithmetic ? Study 
the examples from Pike, given in this chapter, and point out their 
advantages and disadvantages. 

6. Explain why geography came slowly to be a distinct subject 
in the schools. How did the purpose and method of early geography- 
teaching differ from the purpose and method of teaching that subject 
today? How has the method of teaching the subject changed in 
recent years ? Account for this change. In what respect is geography 
a "practical" subject? a "moral" subject? a "cultural" subject? 



SCHOOL PRACTICES BEFORE 1860 305 

7. How have textbooks on grammar and methods of teaching the 
subject changed in recent years ? 

8. Compare the early histories with the texts in use in your school 
today. What was the purpose of the subject when it first appeared? 
What is the purpose of the subject today ? List the characteristics of 
a good textbook on history and the qualifications of a good teacher 
of the subject. 

9. Why was discipline in the ante-bellum school so severe? Ac- 
count for the poor buildings and meager equipment of the early schools. 

10. Explain the low esteem in which the ante-bellum schoolmaster 
was held by the public generally. Trace the development of the train- 
ing and certification of teachers in your State. Why were there so few 
women teaching school in the South before i860? 

11. Account for the lack of supervision in the ante-bellum schools. 
What improvement in supervision has been made in your State in this 
respect in recent years ? What is the present status of rural super- 
vision in your county ? 

12. Account for the fact that there has always been a lack of ade- 
quately trained teachers in the South. Why has this lack been so 
keenly felt in very recent years ? 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Annual reports and legislative documents of the various States. Barnard, 
The American Journal of Education, 30 vols. Hartford, 1855-1881. Coon, 
North Carolina Schools and Academies, 1 790-1840. Raleigh, 1915. Cubber- 
LEY, Public Education in the United States. Boston, 1919. Heatwole, 
A History of Education in Virginia. New York, 1916. Johnson, Old-time 
School and School-books. New York, 1904. Knight, Public School Educa- 
tion in North Carolina. Boston, 1916. Maddox, The Free School Idea in 
Virginia before the Civil War. New York, 191 8. Monroe, Development of 
Arithmetic as a School Subject. Bulletin No. 10, United States Bureau 
of Education. Washington, 191 7. Reeder, The Historical Development of 
School Readers and Methods of teaching Reading. New York, 1900. Shinn, 
History of Education in Arkansas. Washington, 1900. Sims, The Story of 
my Life. New York, 1884. The Free School System of South Carolina. 
Columbia, 1856. (Author unknown.) Weeks, History of Public School 
Education in Alabama. Washington, 1915. Weeks, History of Public 
School Education in Arkansas. Washington, 1912. 



CHAPTER IX 
REORGANIZATON AFTER THE WAR 

Outline of the chapter, i. The so-called "reconstruction period" 
proved more destructive than the war to the resources of public educa- 
tion. It served also to give rise and currency to inaccurate and loose 
statements concerning the extent of ante-bellum educational facilities 
in the South. 

2. Careful studies, however, now show that the schools in the South 
before i860 were not altogether unlike schools in other sections of the 
country during the ante-bellum period. 

3. Comparisons of education in the various sections of the country 
before i860 have led to the specific question of the educational in- 
fluence of reconstruction in the South. This can be answered only 
by a careful study of affairs in that section between 1865 and 1867 
and between 1867 and 1876. 

4. Several of the States sought, under the presidential plan of recon- 
struction (1865 to 1868), to provide educational plans to meet the 
changed conditions, but the adoption of the congressional plan of 
restoring the South prevented any marked success in such undertakings. 

5. The constitutional conventions held under this plan were ex- 
tremely radical, and wholesome educational interest was generally 
deadened by the agitation of the mixed-school question. But the edu- 
cational provisions of the new constitutions were somewhat more 
specific than ante-bellum provisions had been, 

6. The school laws enacted under the new constitutions were gen- 
erally more advanced in mandatory provisions for schools than was the 
legislation before the war. But adverse conditions which grew out of 
the years of reconstruction prevented the successful operation of the 
schools for many years after that period had formally closed. 

The rebuilding and reorganization of a public-school system 
after the war was one of the many disheartening tasks which 
confronted the people of the South. The question of the edu- 
cation of all the people soon became more critically important 

306 



REORGANIZATION AFTER THE WAR 307 

there than in any other part of the Union, The problem was 
complicated and discouraging. The South emerged from the 
four years' conflict with the loss of a large part of her white male 
population and the complete loss of practically all her accumulated 
capital. Not only was it difficult to restore the material resources 
necessary for the building of schools, but the iniquities of the re- 
construction period made an immediate and complete restoration 
of public confidence tedious and well-nigh impossible. 

In fact, the so-called restoration period proved more destructive 
than the war itself. It robbed the 'South of what the war had 
spared, and by looting treasuries and public funds, by imposing 
enormous taxes,' by practicing fraud and extravagance, and by 
piling up colossal bonded debts it succeeded in running its corrupt 
fingers deep "into the pockets of posterity" and left in those 
States, already reduced to penury by the terrors of war, a debt of 
more than $300,000,000. Thus many of the richest portions of the 
South were wasted and shorn of their prosperity ; industry was 
checked in its development ; idleness and fraud were widely en- 
couraged ; local justice was thwarted and put in contempt ; the 
people were ruled by corrupt and reckless officials, and almost 
all tendencies to good government were stifled. In this experi- 
ence is the explanation of the South's educational backwardness 
following the war, and of the indictment, so frequently made, that 
the South hates taxes and tax collectors and distrusts all "public 
welfare" plans and movements. In this experience may likewise 
be found the explanation of the South's so-called devotion to a 
sort of laissez-faire theory in education and of the frequent ex- 
treme applications of the principle of local government in edu- 
cational administration,^ 

Concerning the actual educational influence of the reconstruc- 
tion period a variety of loose and Inaccurate statements have been 
made. It was once popular to assert that there was no public- 
school system in the South prior to the war, that little effort 
for education had been made there before that time, and that a 

^See Knight, Public School Education in North Carolina. 



3o8 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

lack of educational tradition for all the people was largely respon- 
sible for the war and its deplorable consequences. Such education 
as was given in the ante-bellum South was held by some writers 
to have been based on wrong principles, which finally produced 
the secessionist and the rebellion. It was also believed that the 
poor whites of the South were in dense ignorance and that this 
ignorance had been exploited by unprincipled leaders and made 
the foundation for secession and the Confederacy. In still other 
quarters it was believed that the white leaders of the South fre- 
quently opposed public education for the masses of the people and 
that all classes of the native whites opposed the education of the 
negroes after their emancipation. 

Evidence of these opinions accumulated for many years and 
became abundant. The war had scarcely closed before they were 
finding expression throughout the country. The speeches in the 
annual meeting of the National Teachers' Association, which was 
held in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in August, 1865, gave expres- 
sion to the theory that the lately closed rebellion had been a "war 
of education and patriotism against ignorance and barbarism." 
In his opening speech the president of that organization said at 
that time:. 

All through the loyal States our principal institutions have prospered 
to a most wonderful degree. How has it been with the States in rebel- 
lion? Scarcely an institution of learning survived. ... In all free 
States the public-school system prevailed, and in most was adminis- 
tered with great efficiency, giving a good education alike to the poor 
and the rich. . . . How was it in the States where the institution of 
slavery prevailed? There was no common-school system. Exceptions 
there were in some of the cities — but as a general fact, the statement 
is correct. The children of a large portion of the population were, by 
law, prohibited the advantages of an education, and a large portion of 
the free population were virtually shut out from the means of an early 
culture. . . . Thus has our land been deluged in blood. Sagacious 
politicians of the South saw the tendencies, and attributed the evil 
to the quality of Northern education. Without stopping to defend 
the character of our educational processes in the North, let it be 



REORGANIZATION AFTER THE WAR 309 

observed that the root of the difficulty lay not in this direction, but 
in the fact of a diffused and universal education at the North and a 
very limited education at the South. No two sections of the country, 
though under the same government, can dwell together in peace and 
harmony, where the advantages of education are widely dissimilar. . , . 

There is but one alternative — education must be diffused through- 
out the masses of the South. Black and white — "poor white" and 
rich white — all must be educated. Not to educate them is to prepare 
for another Civil War. . . . 

Before the war no southern teacher dared to discuss the whole 
truth at the South. . . . Can we not as educators go boldly into South- 
ern States and teach the truth and the whole truth? If not, I pray 
God that martial law may prevail in every Southern State, till Northern 
men, or any other men, may discuss educational, social, political, and 
moral and religious topics in any part of the South as freely as in 
Faneuil Hall. This right we must have. . . . 

The result of the war was also regarded as affording opportu- 
nities for extending universal education in the Southern States, 
That region was now viewed as a vast missionary field, and this 
view was one of the defenses of the policy finally adopted for 
reconstructing those States. As a result the decade following the 
close of the war witnessed much misdirected missionary zeal and 
visionary effort. With the single exception of the Peabody Fund, 
which had a lasting beneficial influence on education in the South, 
most of such missionary activities were blindly made and wdth 
little or no sympathetic understanding of local conditions and local 
needs. Enthusiasts on the subject of educational and missionary 
labors in the South failed pitiably to consider the temper of the 
popular mind and made the mistake of believing that the chief 
difference between the white man and the negro was the enforced 
ignorance of the latter. This difference, in the opinion of such 
enthusiasts, could be readily removed. In a pamphlet issued near 
the close of the war a Massachusetts minister said : 

We have four millions of liberated slaves who should be educated. 
They ask it of our hands, and the world expects us to do it ; because 
in the very act of emancipation there is the sacred promise to educate. 



310 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

Slavery has kept the word education out of our constitution. Now 
four millions of starved minds implore its introduction. . . . Their 
former masters would not take the trouble to educate them, and would 
generally refuse to pay a local tax for the purpose. Since the Chris- 
tian era there has not been such an opportunity for such a country 
to do such work ; the noblest work man can do. . . . The old slave 
States are to be missionary grounds for the national schoolmaster. . . . 

Largely in this manner there developed the theory that the 
schools which did exist in the South before i860 were altogether 
unlike those found in other sections of the country, A careful 
study, however, of evidence found in school laws, reports of ad- 
ministrative officers, school statistics, messages of the governors, 
and other documentary materials in the various States reveals 
the fact that in origin, organization, and results, so far as results 
can be compared, educational effort in one section of the Union 
before the war was very similar to that in other sections. 

Most of the state school systems in this country passed through 
a storm-and-stress period in their development. In practically 
all of them there were educational landmarks which were made 
by long periods of agitation and the resulting growth of whole- 
some educational sentiment. The so-called early educational re- 
vival in North Carolina, for example, from the establishment of 
the literary fund in 1825 to the passage of the first school law 
fourteen years later, is practically paralleled by the educational 
campaign of Pennsylvania in the early thirties. The educational 
work of Horace Mann in Massachusetts and of Henry Barnard 
in Connecticut was not altogether unlike the work, at somewhat 
later dates, of Wiley in North Carolina and of Perry in Alabama. 
\ Early school legislation in many of the Southern States was 
framed on a theory very similar to that on which it was set up in 
New York, — that the income from the literary fund and a small 
tax were sufficient for educational purposes. The theory on which 
ante-bellum schools in Georgia were set up was not unlike the 
theory on which early schools in Pennsylvania operated.^ 

iSee Knight, Public School Education in North Carolina, chap. xi. 



REORGANIZATION AFTER THE WAR 311 

From such compariscms as are usually made, however, general 
opinions have been formed which have led to the more specific 
question, What influence did the so-called reconstruction regime 
actually have on education in the South? Obviously a satisfac- 
tory answer to the question can be had only by a detailed and 
careful comparison of ante-bellum conditions with the reconstruc- 
tion and post-bellum conditions. Such comparison requires a 
cle^r differentiation both of the periods between 1865 and 1876 
and the plans proposed for restoring the South, and of the classes 
of men who took part in the formal restoration and in the work 
which followed. 

Of the two plans proposed for restoring the South to normal re- 
lations with the Union the presidential plan of reconstruction, from 
i865_to_i862, was an attempt to enlist the cooperation of the 
native white citizens. Under the congressional plan, however, 
from 1867 to 1876, three classes participated in political affairs: 
the native whites, the negro freemen, and men from the North. 
The native whites were sharply divided into two classes, the 
conservative and the radicals, or "scalawags"; the negroes were 
the most homogeneous, usually of the same mind and easily 
influenced ; while the men from the North, popularly known as 
"carpetbaggers," were, from the South's point of view, predomi- 
nantly radical. The reconstruction conventions were composed 
largely of negroes, carpetbaggers, and scalawags, and this was 
largely true of many legislative bodies of that period. 

The presidential plan of restoration began before the war 
closed. Provisional governments had been established by Presi- 
dent Lincoln in Arkansas, in Louisiana, and in Tennessee during 
the war, and he had recognized the new state of West Virginia, 
which was organized out of Virginia. Congress, however, was 
opposed to Lincoln's plan, but had not entirely and definitely 
rejected it when Lee surrendered. After Lincoln's death Presi- 
dent Johnson sought to continue his predecessor's plan and, 
accordingly, published the amnesty proclamation, and in the sum- 
mer of 1865 appointed provisional governors for North Carolina, 



312 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi^ South Carolina, and 
Texas. Each of these States was required to organize a pro- 
visional administration and to call a constitutional convention 
which was to abolish slavery, declare the ordinance of secession 
null and void, repudiate all debts made to carry on the war, and 
provide a new state constitution based on the constitution and 
laws of 1 86 1, but without slavery. Elections were to be held in 
each State, and the provisional governors were to be succeeded by 
those governors elected under this plan. 

This program was followed in the main. The Southern States 
ratified the Thirteenth Amendment (which abolished slavery), 
elected their senators to Congress, and were ready for readmission. 
But Congress refused to admit the Southern representatives ; and 
the governments of the Southern States continued provisional 
and subject to constant interference by President Johnson. Mean- 
v.'hile, the breach between the executive and Congress was widen- 
ing, and the latter proposed the Fourteenth Amendment and 
made its ratification by the legislative bodies of the Southern 
States a condition precedent to the restoration of those States. 
This amendment guaranteed to the freedmen citizenship and 
equality in civil rights and disqualified for state and federal 
office all persons who had participated in the rebellion after 
having taken the oath to support the Constitution of the United 
States. Many of the leading white people of the South were 
thus disqualified. President Johnson opposed the amendment, 
and enough of the Southern States had rejected it when Congress 
met in December, 1865, to indicate the prevailing opinion there. 

The agitation of the "rebel" question and congressional in- 
vestigations, which looked to a safe way of dealing with the 
South, made the year 1866 one of heated campaigning. The heat 
of the campaign was intensified by legislation passed in the 
Southern States in 1 865-1 866 and known as the ''black codes." 
The task of the lawmakers in the South at that time was to 
express the change of the black man from a state of slavery to a 
state of citizenship. Laws had to be made to regulate his family 



REORGANIZATION AFTER THE WAR 313 

life, his morals, and his conduct; to give him the legal right to 
hold property and to testify in court and the right of personal 
protection ; to provide for his education, which hitherto had been 
forbidden in the South ; to prevent him from being exploited by 
the unscrupulous ; and to protect the white people from his law- 
lessness. Many laws relating to the whites were extended to the 
blacks, but sometimes, of course, with slight changes ; and those 
laws which made any distinctions of race served as convenient 
campaign material and were greatly criticized in the North, which 
generally believed them to be intended to reenslave the negro. 
Moreover, by the spring of 1867 the issue between Congress and 
President Johnson was sharply drawn. All the Southern States 
except Tennessee had rejected the Fourteenth Amendment, and it 
became known that the provisional state governments in the 
South would be superseded by military governments and that 
suffrage would be extended to the negro. The presidential plan 
had failed, and Congress took entire charge of reconstructing 
the South. 

What attempts at educational reorganization and improvement 
were made during the presidential plan of reconstruction? In 
the preceding chapter it was noted that many of the States 
which seceded actually accomplished but little for education 
during the war, although some undertook to continue the schools 
as long as possible and in a few States schools continued to 
operate until the fall of the Confederacy. Occasional educa- 
tional legislation was enacted in nearly all the Southern States 
during the armed conflict, but the confusion and stress of the 
times made the enforcement of such legislation almost impossible. 
With the organization of provisional governments in a few of the 
States during the war and in others under the presidential proc- 
lamation of May 29, 1865, an educational interest appeared 
which was indeed remarkable for the conditions of the period. 

In January, 1864, Governor Isaac Murphy, the leader of the 
movement which sought, under Lincoln's proclamation of Decem- 
ber 8, 1863, to form a State government in Arkansas, urged in 



314 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

his message to the Legislature that legal provisions for educational 
opportunities be made for every child in the State "and not 
only give the opportunity, but make the education of the rising 
generation a duty to the State, to be enforced by proper penalties. 
Ignorance leads to slavery ; intelligence to freedom." The leg- 
islative committee on education made a lengthy and valuable 
report on the subject and recommended a state superintendent 
of schools and property taxation for school purposes. But con- 
fused local conditions and a depleted treasury prevented action. 

The Legislature of 1 866-1 867, almost entirely conservative 
in its composition, passed a school law which was advanced and 
modern in respect to its provisions for educational administration 
and support. Under this law the schools were to be maintained 
by public taxation for three months in the year. A State super- 
intendent of schools was chosen, but the validity of his election 
was denied by a military order of General Ord, commanding the 
military district in which Arkansas was situated, and the super- 
intendent was not allowed to exercise the duties of his office. 
Moreover, military authority held that the services of the office 
were unnecessary. Some schools were opened under the new law, 
however, which in many respects became the basis of public-school 
education in Arkansas and provided resources which made pos- 
sible the later establishment of schools in that State. But the 
sums collected for school purposes at this time, amounting to 
about $65,000, later served as handy pocket change for the 
reconstructionists. 

Alabama's constitution of 1865 ordered the enactment of 
proper laws for the encouragement of schools and the preserva- 
tion of the school funds. It also required a state superintendent, 
county superintendents, and local trustees for the supervision of 
the schools, such as had served under the ante-bellum organization. 
In accordance with these provisions a law was enacted in Febru- 
ary, 1867, which created a creditable school system open to 
"every child between the ages of six and twenty years." School 
officers were appointed, and the schools were rapidly being brought 



REORGANIZATION AFTER THE WAR 315 

into working order in a large part of the State when congressional 
reconstruction began. But funds provided for schools were used, 
by reconstruction legislation of 1868 and 1869, "to meet other 
pressing debts of the State," and in this manner were diverted 
from their lawful uses. 

'^Tennessee undertook the rebuilding of its school system in 
1865, when the appropriate legislative committee began to study 
the school systems of other States. In that year appropriations 
were made for public schools, and shortly afterward legal pro- 
visions were made for the schools in Memphis, although these 
provisions were substantially a reenactment of the laws of i860. 
In 1866 the ante-bellum property tax for school purposes was 
levied, and later this tax was raised from two and one-half cents 
to twenty cents on the hundred dollars' valuation, which in- 
creased the available school funds for 1867 to about S66o,ooo. 
This law, which originated with the teachers' association of the 
State, was very advanced and contemplated schools for both races. 
It provided for an adequate administrative organization and for 
the maintenance of schools for not less than five months in the 
year, with separate schools for colored children. The records of 
the legislative bodies from 1865 to 1867 show considerable 
educational interest in that State. But the popular mind was con- 
fused, and distrust prevailed everywhere. Moreover, there was 
considerable trouble over the Bank of Tennessee, in which the 
ante-bellum literary fund was invested and through which it was 
eventually lost. 

In Mississippi there was evidence of unusual interest in schools 
for both white and colored children. The attitude of the conserva- 
tive element on the subject of V^gro education was very liberal, 
and as early as 1866 the planters were urged to establish schools 
on their farms for the education of Wegro children. The following 
year the State teachers' association met in Jackson and advised 
that public-school facilities be provided for the freedmen, and 
such facilities would likely have been provided by the native 
white people "had not the 'carpetbaggers' forestalled their 



3i6 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

action," Several newspapers of the State also urged provision 
for negro education before the beginning of the congressional 
plan of reconstruction and encouraged Southern men in that 
undertaking, and in July, 1866, it was stated that "organized 
plans for the intellectual improvement of the negro are being 
generally adopted throughout the State." A school for colored 
children was in operation at Holly Springs under the superintend- 
ence of Judge Watson, and Kinloch Falkner, a former secretary 
of State in Mississippi, was one of the teachers. A similar school 
was set up at Oxford by Chancellor Waddell and several pro- 
fessors of the university of the State.^ The constitution of Texas 
of 1866 contemplated and provided for schools for negroes as 
well as for whites, and the constitution of 1869, known as the 
reconstruction constitution, did not materially change the instru- 
ment of 1866 in this respect. 

In Georgia, North Carolina, and other States there appeared 
also an unexpected interest in education from 1865 to 1867, and 
vigorous efforts were generally made to adjust educational plans 
to the changed condition of the times. The Legislature of Georgia 
in December, 1866, enacted legislation to provide for a general 
system of schools, a state superintendent, county superintendents 
or commissioners, local trustees, and for support by a county tax 
supplemented by the state school fund. The act was not to go 
into effect, however, until after January, 1868, postponement 
having been agreed upon on account of the poverty-stricken 
condition of the people. Before that time the congressional 
plan of restoring the South was set in motion. Meantime the 
Legislature had made provisions for the state university, and in 
some of the cities of the State the organization of the public 
educational work was making some headway. 

Here, as in other States, however, the uncertainty of the legality 
of its acts prevented the Legislature from making more definite 
enactments for schools. The ante-bellum literary funds were lost, 

^See Noble, Forty Years of the Public Schools of Mississippi. 



REORGANIZATION AFTER THE WAR 317 

the people were impoverished as a result of the war, and the 
former means of school support were cut off almost entirely. In 
some cases policies of economy were adopted. In the main, how- 
ever, the leaders of the period recognized the changes which the 
result of the war had produced and courageously set themselves to 
the task of readjustment ; and but for the inauguration of the 
congressional plan of restoring the South, the educational needs 
of both white and colored children would have been more properly 
cared for during the years following the war. The obstacles to 
peace and good order could have been more easily removed, and 
the public schools — which later became so unpopular because of 
the circumstances which surrounded their establishment — could 
have grown in popular favor and could have become more readily 
both the chief pride of the State and the principal means of solving 
the great problem which the war left for solution to the white 
people of the South. 

■^ The radical members of Congress triumphed over the Demo- 
crats, the moderate Republicans, and the president, and, on 
March 2, 1867, passed over the president's veto the first so-called 
reconstruction act, which reduced the Southern States to military 
provinces and set up in them the rule of martial law. The States 
were divided into five military districts, which were put under 
Federal military commanders. State intervention was not to be 
permitted, although the provisional civil administrative power of 
the State could be used by the commanders in their discretion. 
The authority and rule of martial law were to continue until the 
people of the "said rebel states" formed constitutions in con- 
formity with the Constitution of the United States and framed 
by conventions of delegates elected by the male citizens of 
*' twenty-one years of age and upward of whatever race, color, or 
previous condition . . . except such as may be disfranchised for 
participation in the rebellion, or for felony at common law." 
When such constitutions had been framed, ratified by the elec- 
torate, and approved by Congress, and when the legislative 
bodies elected under the new constitutions had ratified the 



3i8 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

proposed Fourteenth Amendment, the States were to be entitled 
to representation in Congress and were to be admitted. Until the 
States were reconstructed in the manner prescribed by this act, the 
civil government in existence in them was "to be deemed pro- 
visional only, and in all respects subject to the permanent authority 
of the United States at any time to abolish, modify, control, or 
supersede the same." 

A supplementary act was passed March 23 "to provide for the 
more efficient government of the rebel States" and to facilitate 
their restoration. This act called for the registration of all men 
who could qualify under the act of March 2 and directed the 
commanders of the various military districts to order an election 
for the choice of delegates to a constitutional convention of each 
State. The purpose of these two acts was purely political. They 
were formed primarily to give the ballot to the ^egro in the ten 
Southern States which had rejected the Fourteenth Amendment 
to the Constitution of the United States, and their operation was 
incidental to this one object. 

The election of delegates to the constitutional conventions was 
held by order of the commanders of the various military dis- 
tricts, and the conventions met in the fall and winter of 1867- 
1868. The composition of these bodies was altogether unlike 
anything ever before seen in the South. They consisted of scala- 
wags, or native whites who were out of sympathy with the South 
and who favored the congressional plan of restoration ; carpet- 
baggers, Northern men who went South after the war, who 
favored the plan of Congress, and who were later charged with 
exploiting the people and seeking private gain ; ignorant negroes ; 
and a few conservative whites. 

In the Virginia convention there were 22 native negroes. Thir- 
teen of the members were scalawags ; 14 came from New York ; 
3 each from Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and England ; and one 
each came from Maine, Vermont, Connecticut, New Jersey, Mary- 
land, Washington City, South Carolina, Ireland, Scotland, and 
Canada. The "radicals" numbered 72 and the "conservatives" t,t,. 



REORGANIZATION AFTER THE WAR 319 

Of the 124 delegates to the South Carolina convention 48 
were white and 76 were negroes (49 of whom were South Caro- 
lina blacks). There were only 4 conservatives in the convention. 
Of the white delegation 23 were native South Carolinians ; others 
came from Massachusetts, North Carolina, England, Georgia, 
Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Ireland, Prussia, and 
Denmark. Twenty-three of the entire white delegation and 59 
of the negro members paid no taxes whatever. North Carolina's 
convention contained 120 radicals and 13 conservatives. Eight 
of the members were carpetbaggers and 15 were negroes. 

The convention in Texas consisted of 12 conservatives and 78 
radicals, 9 of whom were negroes. Florida's convention con- 
sisted of 46 delegates, 18 of whom were negroes, and all other 
members were scalawags and carpetbaggers except 2 who were 
conservatives. The negro members were field hands, barbers, 
and hack drivers. The convention in Georgia contained 37 
negroes, 12 conservatives, 9 carpetbaggers, and a very large num- 
ber of scalawags. Mississippi's body, which became known as the 
''Black and Tan Convention," had only 19 conservatives and 
107 radicals; 15 of the radicals were negroes, 18 were carpet- 
baggers, and the others were scalawags. The Alabama con- 
vention contained 2 conservatives and 98 radicals, of whom 
18 were negroes and 38 carpetbaggers. The members of 
this body were described as ''worthless vagabonds — homeless, 
houseless, drunken knaves." The composition of the conven- 
tions of Arkansas and Louisiana was similar to that of the 
other States. 

Conservative opinion of these bodies was expressed in some- 
what vigorous terms in the press and elsewhere in the various 
States. The day following the meeting of the Virginia convention 
the Richmond Dispatch,^ spoke editorially of it as having been 
"elected under the unconstitutional reconstruction laws of Con- 
gress. . . . Created by fraud and outrage — outrage of the Con- 
stitution and every principle of humanity, and every dictate of 
1 December 4, .1867. 



320 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

wisdom, its life must be brief and its deeds die with it." On the 
same day that the North Carolina convention met the Raleigh 
Sentinel said : 

The pillars of the capitol should be hung in mourning today for the 
murdered sovereigrrty of North Carolina. In the hall where have been 
collected, in days gone by, the wisdom, the patriotism, the virtue of 
the State, there assembles this morning a body convened by an order 
of Congress, in violation of the Constitution of the United States 
and in utter disregard of the Constitution of North Carolina, a body 
which, in no sense, as a whole, represents the true people of the State, 
which has not been elected according to our laws nor chosen by those 
to whom those laws have committed the right of suffrage. In the 
seats which have been filled by some of the best and truest sons of 
North Carolina, will be found a number of negroes, a still larger 
number of men who have no interests or sentiments in common with 
our people, but who were left in our midst by the receding tide of war, 
and yet others who have proven false to their mother and have leagued 
with her enemies. 



Nothing so well illustrates the character of these conventions 
as the debates on the persistent question of mixed schools, a sub- 
ject which arose soon after the committees on education were 
appointed, in many of the States became a heated issue imme- 
diately, and throughout the South generally had a far-reaching and 
damaging effect on the subject of schools. At one time or another 
during reconstruction mixed schools came in for more or less con- 
sideration in practically all the Southern States, either in the 
convention or the Legislature and sometimes in both. A few 
examples will serve to illustrate. 

In Virginia, where legislation which looked to the establishment 
of mixed schools had little chance of passage, the matter began 
to be warmly discussed as soon as the report of the committee 
on education was presented. A conservative member offered as 
an amendment to the report "that in no case shall white and 
colored children be taught at the same time and in the same 
house," and this amendment greatly agitated the negro members, 



REORGANIZATION AFTER THE WAR 3^.^ 

one of whom spoke with much feeling. He "didn't want to see 
no such claw [clause] in the constitution, and the fust thing we 
knew, der would be similar claws regards waship [worship]. Ez 
fer dis, dere was worser company of white children dan he wished 
his children to be wid; and dese was secesh children." He wanted 
"loil [loyal] school and loil children," but he did not want "dis 
claw to commodate de prejudices of rebels and seceshes," because 
he regarded himself as high over "a rebel and traitor ez heaven was 
over hell." 

Another J^egro member vehemently opposed "dis old slavery 
notion of having two school-houses war one would do." Another 
member proposed the amendment that the public schools of the 
State should be free and open alike to all classes, that "no child 
pubill [sic] or scholar" should be rejected from such schools on 
account of race, color, or any other distinction, and that the 
Legislature should not have "pour" [power] to make any law that 
would admit of any invidious distinction. Another stated that the 
"questarn was equal rights and justice to all men, erregardless 
of race and color," though he did not wish to "detain the floor 
long, as you all knows I is not conversial with school matters, and 
am new in de issues of de day." Another declared that if the 
right of mixed schools were not guaranteed to the negroes the 
carpetbaggers would be forced to pack up and leave the State. 
In urging a settlement of "dis question in framing the organical 
law," he urged that but for "de bone, and de sinews, and de 
muscle, and de skin, which was de colored people, de Rippublican 
party would hardly be a skeleton." The protests of the negro 
members and their repeated threats to divide the Republican 
party on the issue were fruitless, however, and the proposed pro- 
vision for mixed schools failed by a large majority to be inserted 
in the constitution. The subject later appeared in the Legisla- 
ture when the school law was being framed, but it met the same 
fate there as befell it in the convention. 

T^e case was different in South Carolina, where the committee 
on education reported that all schools, colleges, and universities 



ji2 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

of the State supported by the public funds should be free and 
open to all children without regard to race or color. This section 
of the report was referred to the committee for further considera- 
tion, but it emerged later substantially unchanged. The debate 
was heated. In discussing the mixed-school plan a white delegate 
who favored the congressional plan of reconstruction pointed 
out that opposition to the education of the negro was rapidly 
dying out in South Carolina. He cited as evidence measures taken 
by various organizations, conventions, and religious conferences 
which had met for the purpose of making educational provision 
for the children of the negro race. Mixed schools, he argued, 
would not increase sympathy for but hostility to the education of 
the negro ; moreover, such schools would be attended by the 
colored children only. A negro member believed that the negroes 
should treat the white people with leniency and charity, as a 
magnanimous Christian people would treat their former enemies, 
but such liberality needed to be compatible with the black man's 
safety. He believed that no distinction should be made in the 
schoolhouse and in the church. 

The debate concluded by the chairman of the committee, the 
Reverend E. L. Cardozo, a negro member who finally became 
treasurer of the State. He argued that the whole scheme of re- 
construction was antagonistic to the wishes of South Carolinians 
and that the mixed-school plan was a legitimate part of that 
scheme. Race prejudices could best be removed, he said, by forc- 
ing the white children and the negro children '' to mingle in school 
together and to associate generally." In some communities, how- 
ever, it might be necessary to provide separate schools, but for 
a few white children ''to demand such separation would be 
absurd, and I hope that the convention will give its consent to 
no such proposition." This was the final word on the subject 
in the convention, and the vote gave an overwhelming majority 
for the mixed-school section. 

Referring to this action of the convention in his message to the 
Legislature in July, Governor Orr, who was retiring from office, 



REORGANIZATION AFTER THE WAR 323 

said that the provision for mixed schools was a reckless and 
dangerous experiment and was not desired by the negroes or the 
whites, and if submitted to their decision the provision would 
have been completely repudiated by both. He noted also the 
causes for bickering and controversy already existing between the 
two people, and declared that ''no greater cruelty could be in- 
flicted by legislation upon the parents of the children of the 
two races, than that which is contemplated by this objectional 
feature of the constitution." Governor Scott, who succeeded 
Orr, shared the latter's opinion of the constitutional provision for 
mixed schools and likewise urged, in his message to the Legisla- 
ture, the establishment of separate schools for the education of the 
children of the State. He believed the separation of the children 
in the public schools "a matter of the greatest importance to all 
classes of our people." Later he said: 

It is the declared design of the constitution that all classes of our 
people shall be educated, but not to provide for this separation of the 
two races will be to repel the masses of the whites from the educational 
training that they so much need, and virtually to give our colored 
population the exclusive benefit of our public schools. Let us, there- 
fore, recognize facts as they are and rely upon time and the elevating 
influences of popular education to dispel any unjust prejudices that 
may exist among the two races of our fellow citizens. 

North Carolina's convention failed to incorporate in the con- 
stitution any provision either for or against mixed schools, al- 
though the subject was debated with much feeling. In the 
Legislature, however, numerous efforts were made by the radicals 
to open the race question. One member endeavored in vain to 
have inserted in the proposed school law a provision to prevent 
the teaching of the ''doctrine of secession and of the lost cause"; 
another sought to prevent the teaching of "the sentiments em- 
bodied in that well-known song, 'John Brown's Soul is Marching 
Along'"; another desired a legal provision which would prevent 
any colored teacher from instructing in a v/hite school ; another 



324 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

proposed a provision which looked to preventing white teachers 
from serving in negro schools ; and still another proposed " that no 
white Democrat should teach any colored girl," Finally, how- 
ever, provision for separate schools was made in the school law of 
1869.1 

Separate schools were also provided for in Texas, Arkansas, 
Tennessee, and Georgia, and in Alabama provision was made for 
the races to be kept separate '■'■ unless it be by the unanimous con- 
sent of the parents and guardians." The schools in that State 
did not suffer so much from foreign exploitation as did the schools 
in some States. Reconstruction in Georgia, which provided for 
separate schools, was also marked more or less for its moderation. 
The conservative white citizens were better represented in the ad- 
ministration of the State's affairs, and there were fewer reconstruc- 
tion evils and less wanton corruption and extravagance in public 
office. The constitution left provision for the school system 
very largely to the Legislature, and the act to establish schools 
was initiated chiefly by the work of the state teachers' associa- 
tion and was therefore a conservative product. 

There was no expressed provision for separate schools in the 
constitution of Mississippi, and the establishment of mixed 
schools was probably not contemplated in it, but by the law 
of July, 1870, the schools were opened to all the youth of school 
age in the State without distinction. No efforts seem to have 

^A conservative by the name of Love from Jackson County and a radical 
by the name of Moore from Carteret County engaged in a heated dis- 
cussion in the Senate during the final consideration of the educational bill. 
Love reminded the body that the gentleman from Carteret was not in- 
terested in the affairs of North Carolina and, besides, was a carpetbagger. 
Moore replied that the gentleman from Jackson was a liar. The gentleman 
from Jackson answered that the gentleman from Carteret was not just an 
ordinary liar, but a damned liar, and a final epithet was even more un- 
becoming a gentleman of senatorial rank. The encounter grew so fierce that 
the presiding officer rebuked the senators, and a committee was appointed 
to investigate their conduct. But the records do not show which one of 
the gentlemen was correct in his contention. See Knight, Public School 
Education in North Carolina, pp. 233-234. 



REORGANIZATION AFTER THE WAR 325 

been made, however, to maintain mixed schools, and only a few 
were reported in existence in the State during this period. Under 
Louisiana's constitution all children of school age in that State 
were to be admitted to "the public schools or other institutions 
of learning sustained or established by the State in common, with- 
out distinction of race, color or previous condition," and the 
establishment of separate schools or institutions of learning ex- 
clusively for any race by the State was made illegal. This was 
perhaps the most radical step taken by any of the constitutional 
or legislative bodies of reconstruction, and opposition to it was 
widespread and violent. In effect mixed schools were made legal 
in Florida also. 

The new constitutions varied somewhat in details, but in the 
main they were more or less similar. In general there was an 
expansion of educational provisions which were also more specific 
and more mandatory than were the ante-bellum constitutional 
provisions. The sources of school support were designated and 
provision was made for the reestablishment of the ante-bellum 
permanent public-school funds and for the administrative organ- 
ization of education, or the Legislatures were required to make 
such provision. Provision was also made under the new constitu- 
tions for the education of the negro, for whom educational oppor- 
tunity had not been provided before the war. 
-^The provisions for uniform systems of taxation for school 
support were perhaps the most beneficial of all the constitutional 
requirements for education in the South during the reconstruction 
period. The State and local administrative organizations which 
the new constitutions provided for, however, in the main followed 
very closely and showed only slight advance over ante-bellum 
custom in the South. 

The constitution of Virginia required the Legislature of that 
State to elect a superintendent of public instruction, who was to 
report for the consideration of that body "within thirty days after 
his election a plan for a uniform system of free public schools." 
There were numerous applicants for the superintendency, but 



326 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

the Reverend W. H. Ruffner, who was ably supported by General 
Robert E, Lee and other prominent Virginians, was selected for 
the position, and he at once set to work on the task designated. 
A plan was presented, in the form of a bill, which was revised by 
Professor John B. Minor, a prominent teacher of law in the 
University of Virginia, and under the leadership of Colonel Ed- 
mund Pendleton in the Senate and of Major Henderson M. Bell 
in the House (both conservatives) it became law in July, 1870. 

The law provided for State, county, and local supervision for 
schools, which were to be free to all children between the ages 
of five and twenty-one years and which were to continue for 
five months. Separate schools were provided for the colored 
children. Normal schools were also to have a place in the plan, 
and agricultural and graded schools were to be provided. The 
literary fund was reorganized and secured and, in addition to its 
income, provision was made for a capitation tax of one dollar and 
a property tax of ten cents on the hundred dollars' valuation, 
with optional county and district property taxation. 

The excellences of this law, now celebrated in Virginia's educa- 
tional history, and the dispatch with which it was prepared are 
interesting in the light of events of thirty years before. In Chap- 
ter VII it was noted that an educational convention was held in 
Lexington in 1841 and that its presiding officer, Dr. Henry 
Ruffner, presented a very remarkable plan for public education in 
Virginia. That plan called for a property tax for school support, 
a modern-school organization, and other principles of educational 
administration now universally accepted as sound. The plan 
which Ruffner presented to the Legislature of Virginia in 1870 
and which was enacted into law at that time was strikingly simi- 
lar to that presented by his father in 184 1. It is not unlikely 
that the younger Ruffner had before him in 1870 the plan which 
the elder Ruffner urged thirty years earlier ; certainly it is evi- 
dent that the earlier plan influenced the later one. It should be 
kept in mind, therefore, that Virginia's post-bellum school system 
was planned by and enacted into law under the leadership of 



REORGANIZATION AFTER THE WAR 327 

native, conservative Virginians and that it was set on its way to 
success by a native, conservative Virginian who had unwavering 
faith in the power of state-supported and state-controlled public 
education, free and open alike to all classes.^ 

The new school law in North Carolina, which was almost en- 
tirely the product of the Senate, contained provisions for school 
support which were mandatory and less discretionary than the 
provisions of earlier acts. In most respects, however, it resembled 
ante-bellum legislation. Provision was made for a state board of 
education similar to the ante-bellum literary board, but with more 
specific powers, and for county and township school officers with 
duties very much like the duties of similar officers before i860. 
The township trustees were to establish and maintain, for at least 
four months in every year, a number of schools at convenient 
points for the education of all children between the ages of six and 
twenty-one. They were also required to provide schoolhouses and 
equipment, employ and dismiss teachers, visit the schools, gather 
and report school statistics, and give attention to the details of 
local educational administration. Provision was made for a county 
examiner, whose duties were practically the same as those of the 
county educational officers of ante-bellum days. A course of study 
was prescribed to consist of reading, writing, spelling, geography, 
and English grammar and "such other studies as may be deemed 
necessary." Seventy-five per cent of the State and county capita- 
tion taxes was to be applied to public-school support, in addition 
to which a legislative appropriation was made to assist in main- 
taining the schools for four months. This latter source of school 
support, however, proved to be only a ''paper" appropriation. 
With the exception of a definitely prescribed school term and 
provisions for a general school tax and for the education of the 
freedmen, the law of 1869 was practically a copy of the law of 
1839 and its revisions.^ It became the basis of Virginia's present 
school system. 

1 Knight, Reconstruction and Education in Virginia. 

2 Knight, Public School Education in North Carolina, chap. xi. 



328 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

The bill to establish a school system in South Carolina passed 
through the House and the Senate with no extraordinary debate 
and became law in February, 1870. For the first time in its 
history that State had adequate constitutional and legal provi- 
sions for public schools. A state board of education was created 
which took the place of the legislative committee on education of 
ante-bellum days ; provision was made for a state superintendent, 
an office which did not exist in South Carolina before the war ; 
and county school commissioners, county examiners, and local- 
district trustees were also provided for and their respective duties 
defined. The course of study was to consist of "orthography, 
reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, English grammar, history 
of the United States and of this State, and good behavior." 
J. K. Jillson, of Massachusetts, who had previously been in the 
employ of the Freedmen's Bureau, became the first superintendent 
under the new regime. 

The new school law of Arkansas was enacted in July, 1868. 
It provided for a state superintendent to be elected by the 
people every four years, at an annual salary of $3500, and a cir- 
cuit superintendent for each judicial district of the State was to 
be appointed by the governor at an annual salary of $3000. These 
circuit officers were to report annually to the state superintendent, 
to have supervision of all school matters in their respective dis- 
tricts, and, with the state superintendent, to form a state board 
of education. The counties were divided into local districts, 
each of which was entitled to one trustee to be elected by popular 
vote in the district and to receive two dollars for each day actually 
employed by him in the discharge of his duties, provided, how- 
ever, that he should not receive remuneration for more than 
ten days' services annually. The interest on the permanent 
school fund (which was reorganized), a general property tax 
which had begun under the presidential plan of reconstruction, a 
uniform capitation tax, and an optional local tax constituted the 
principal sources of school support. Provision was also made 
for teachers' institutes. Teachers had to take oath to support 



REORGANIZATION AFTER THE WAR 329 

honestly and faithfully the constitution and the laws of the State 
and to encourage all other persons to do so, never to countenance 
or aid in the secession of the State from the United States, to incul- 
cate in the children sentiments of patriotism, and to perform 
faithfully and impartially all the duties of their office. The fol- 
lowing year an act was passed by which special school districts 
could be created in towns and cities, and under this legislation 
urban systems were organized in several communities. 
~J The school law enacted by the first reconstruction Legislature 
of Alabama differed but little from earlier legislation in that 
State. The constitution had placed all public educational inter- 
ests under the control of a state board, which was given rather 
large legislative powers. The acts of this board, when approved 
by the governor — who was ex-officio a member of it — or when 
reenacted by a two-thirds vote in case of executive disapproval, 
were to have full legislative force unless repealed by the Legisla- 
ture. This board named the county superintendents, who, in turn, 
selected trustees for the local schools and ordered the establish- 
ment of public schools throughout the State for the free instruction 
of all children between the ages of five and twenty-one. The school 
system proved top-heavy from the outset. Large powers given 
the central board proved unpopular, and the numerous admin- 
istrative officers from design or otherwise absorbed large parts 
of the school funds before they reached the schools. Many teach- 
ers in practically every county often failed to receive payment for 
their services, and as early as 1870 the school affairs of the State 
were condemned as '' shameful and reprehensible." 

Florida's new constitution and the school law of January, 1869, 
made rather excellent provisions for schools in that State. The 
various sources of the permanent school fund in existence before 
the war were redesignated, and provision was made for the appli- 
cation of the income to public-school support. A state school 
tax of not less than one mill on the dollar was to be levied, and 
each county was required to raise by taxation not less than 
half the amount which it received from the general school fund. 



330 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

Provision was made for a state superintendent, for county super- 
intendents, and for local trustees. The school law embodied some 
of the best features of earlier educational legislation, but with 
certain adaptations which were not always happy and wholesome. 
The schools were to be open and free to all children between the 
ages of six and twenty-one. 

The new school law of Georgia, approved in October, 1870, 
like the law of Virginia and of Tennessee, was a conservative 
product. It was largely the work of a committee from the state 
teachers' association, a representative group which had met in 
Atlanta in August, 1869. A state board of education was created, 
to be composed of certain state officers, and provision was made 
for a state superintendent, for county and district supervision, 
and for more or less adequate school support. The schools were 
to be free to all children, but separate schools were required for 
negroes. The creditable educational efforts made in Georgia 
before congressional reconstruction began helped very largely to 
put the machinery of the new system in readiness by the close 
of 1870, but it was not until 1872, when the conservatives got 
practically complete control of the state government, that order 
was restored and the public schools were put in general operation. 
Until that time the available school funds were so generally 
squandered that but few schools were maintained and with only a 
few teachers. Afterward, however, conditions improved and the 
schools slowly came to occupy their rightful position in the 
State. 

The new school law of Louisiana was approved in March, 
1869, in conformity to the new constitutional provisions. A 
state board of education was created, to consist of the state 
superintendent, one member from each congressional district in 
the State, and two members from the State at large, and under 
this board the management and control of public schools were 
placed. The State was divided into six districts, which corre- 
sponded to the congressional districts, and a superintendent was 



REORGANIZATION AFTER THE WAR 331 

to be appointed for each such division. The state board was em- 
powered to appoint local school directors to manage and control 
local schools, subject to the direction of the district superin- 
tendents. A general property tax of two mills on the dollar was 
levied for school purposes, and permission was given local com- 
munities to vote additional taxes when necessary, provided, how- 
ever, that such taxes should not exceed five mills on the dollar. 
Separate schools were prohibited, and all children between the 
ages of six and twenty-one years were to be educated without 
distinction. The large centralization of authority in the state 
board (which took from the people the power of determining how 
the local schools should be controlled), insufficient resources for 
school support, and indifference and often bitter opposition 
aroused by the mixed-school requirement greatly impaired the 
success of the school system in this State during the early years 
of reconstruction. 

The new law of Mississippi, enacted in July, 1870, embodied 
the provisions required by the constitution of the previous year. 
Provision was made for a state board of education, a state 
superintendent, county superintendents, and local trustees ; a four 
months' school term was required and provision was made for 
rather liberal school support. The state board was given control 
over the school lands and school funds and the power of appoint- 
ing the county superintendents. Teachers' institutes were to be 
held under the direction of the state superintendent, who was 
also required to visit annually the schools of each congressional 
district. Powers of supervising the local schools and of examining 
and licensing teachers were given the county superintendents. 
Under the law the schools were to be free and open to all chil- 
dren from five to twenty-one years of age without distinction. 
This feature of the system met with violent opposition and often 
produced disastrous results. 

Texas emerged from the war with its resources severely crippled 
and its educational enterprises generally demoralized. As noted 



332 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

above, however, its constitutional and legal provisions under the 
presidential plan of restoration undertook to restore as normal 
educational conditions as the stress of the times would allow. 
The reorganization of that period provided for the legislative 
support of schools and contemplated school facilities for the 
negroes and an adequate administrative organization. The consti- 
tution of 1869 did not materially change the earlier provisions 
except in providing for the election of the state superintendent, 
after the first term of office, by popular vote instead of by 
appointment by the governor. The law of August 13, 1870, 
directed that schools should be maintained four months in each 
year, provided for county and local officers, for the examination 
and certification of teachers, for a form of compulsory attendance 
of children between the ages of six and sixteen years, and allowed 
private teachers to participate in the benefits of the school fund 
in districts where no public schools were set up, provided, however, 
that such teachers were examined and certificated by the county 
examiners. For public-school support there was to be set aside 
one fourth of the state revenue from taxation, as well as the 
annual capitation tax of one dollar and the income from the 
permanent school fund. 

Tennessee was readmitted to the Union in July, 1866, and thus 
escaped congressional reconstruction, but a division of sentiment 
prevented a continuous domestic peace during that regime. But 
the new school law enacted in March, 1867, largely the work of 
the state teachers' association, made provisions for state, county, 
and district organization and supervision, for a state board of 
commissioners to care for the school fund, and for additional school 
support by capitation, property, and other taxes. The county 
superintendents were to examine and certificate teachers and per- 
form other duties usually required of such officers. The schools 
were to continue five months each year by general support, and 
longer by permissive local taxation. 

In general the earlier school laws enacted under the new consti- 
tutions were more specific and less discretionary in character than 



REORGANIZATION AFTER THE WAR 333 

ante-bellum educational legislation had been. Provision was made 
for uniform methods of school support by property or capitation 
taxation or both and by optional local taxation for definitely 
prescribed school terms, for state and local taxation and admin- 
istrative organization, for courses of study, for reorganizing the 
ante-bellum school endowments or literary funds, and for the 
examination and certification of teachers. Many of these pro- 
visions were theoretical and nominal, however, and the legislation 
contained other defects and weaknesses which served for many 
years to delay rather than to promote public education in some 
of the States, But legislation enacted largely under conservative 
influence — as was the case in Virginia and a few other States — 
was usually more nearly in accord with the needs and the temper 
of the times and was therefore more successful in operation. 

Legislative enactments alone were not sufficient, however, for 
the building of a good school system. Education, which was now 
confronted by new and peculiar obstacles, needed more than laws 
and constitutional requirements for its promotion and expansion. 
There was everywhere in the South at this time a sense of un- 
certainty and insecurity which was produced by the changed 
political conditions, distressing poverty, and the inexperience, 
prejudice, and ignorance of those in control of affairs. The theory 
was gaining that public education was to be universal, but it was 
difficult to make that a guiding principle in practice. The new 
status of the negro, who had suddenly been given a prominent 
political place without any preparation for it, and the constant 
dread of mixed schools proved to be practical obstacles in the 
way of public educational improvement. These and other condi- 
tions made difficult the successful work of the schools during 
reconstruction and even for several years following the close of 
that period. We now turn to a study of the operation of the 
schools during that time. 



334 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION AND FURTHER STUDY 

1. Why was public education such a discouraging problem to the 
people of the South after 1865 ? 

2. How did the presidential plan of reconstruction differ from the 
congressional plan? What effect did the political changes of those 
years have on public education in your State ? 

3. Study the legislation and the press of your State for the re- 
flection of attitude toward public education between 1865 and 1868. 

4. What was the attitude of Southern leaders toward the educa- 
tion of the freedmen during those years ? Give evidence that your 
State would have made provision for their education if the presidential 
plan of reconstruction had been successful. 

5. Compare the educational provisions of legislation during con- 
gressional reconstruction with those of the ante-bellum period in your 
State for (a) school support, (b) organization and administration of 
schools, (c) supervision of schools, (d) training of teachers, (e) ex- 
amination and certification of teachers, (/) curriculum and textbooks. 

6. Why was the question of mixed schools so generally agitated 
in the constitutional conventions and legislative bodies of reconstruction ? 

7. Show how public education was promoted in your State during 
the period of congressional reconstruction. In what ways was it 
retarded ? 

8. Show how it was natural that during the years immediately 
following the close of the war inaccurate statements should have been 
made concerning the extent of education in the South before i860. 

9. Why was the South looked upon as a promising field for mis- 
sionary and educational effort after the war? What effect did that 
attitude have on public education in those States then and later? 

10. List the actual educational benefits which the period of recon- 
struction made in your State. What would have been the result if 
the white leadership of your State had been free to act without any 
outside interference during that period? Give reasons for your 
opinion. 

11. Should the Federal government have aided the reorganization 
and development of public education in the South after the Civil 
War ? Give reasons for your answer. 



REORGANIZATION AFTER THE WAR 335 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Acts of the Legislature of the various States. Appleton, The American 
Annual Cyclopedia for 1867, 1868, and 1869. Barnard, The American 
Journal of Education, 30 vols. Hartford, 1855-1881. Circulars of infor- 
mation, United States Bureau of Education : Bush, History of Education 
in Florida (Washington, 1889) ; Clark, History of Education in Alabama 
(Washington, 1889) ; Fay, History of Education in Louisiana (Wash- 
ington, 1898) ; Jones, Education in Georgia (Washington, 1889) ; Lane, 
History of Education in Texas (Washington, 1903); Mayes, History of 
Education in Mississippi (Washington, 1899) ; Meriwether, History of 
Higher Education in South CaroHna (Washington, 1899) ; Merriam, Higher 
Education in Tennessee (Washington, 1893); Shinn, History of Education 
in Arkansas (Washington, 1900) ; Smith, History of Education in North 
Carolina (Washington, 1888). Calvin, Popular Education in Georgia. 
Augusta, 1870. Davis, The Civil War and Reconstruction in Florida. 
New York, 1913. Dunning, Essays on the Civil War and Reconstruction. 
New York, 1897. Dunning, Reconstruction Political and Economic. New 
York, 1907. Eckenrode, The Political History of Virginia during the Re- 
construction (Johns Hopkins University Studies in History and Political 
Science). Baltimore, 1904. Ficklen, History of Reconstruction in Louisi- 
ana through 1868 (Johns Hopkins University Studies in History and 
Political Science). Baltimore, 1910. Fleming, Civil War and Reconstruc- 
tion in Alabama. New York, 1905. Fleming, Documentary History of 
Reconstruction, 2 vols. Cleveland, 1906, 1907. Garner, Reconstruction in 
Mississippi. New York, 1901. Garner (Ed.), Studies in Southern History 
and Politics (inscribed to William A. Dunning). New York, 1914. Hamil- 
ton, Reconstruction in North Carolina. New York, 1914. Heatwole, 
History of Education in Virginia. New York, 1916. Hollis, The Early 
Period of Reconstruction in South Carolina (Johns Hopkins University 
Studies in History and Pohtical Science). Baltimore, 1905. Howard, 
Autobiography, 2 vols. New York, 1907. Journals of the House and 
Senate of the various States. Kendrick, The Journal of the Joint Com- 
mittee of Fifteen on Reconstruction. New York, 1914. Knight, The In- 
fluence of Reconstruction on Education in the South. New York, 1913. 
Knight, Public School Education in North Carolina. Boston, 1916. 
Knight, "Reconstruction and Education in Virginia," in the South Atlantic 
Quarterly for January and April, 1916. Knight, "Reconstruction and 
Education in South Carolina," in the South Atlantic Quarterly for October, 
1919, and January, 1920. Knight, "Some Fallacies Concerning the His- 
tory of Education in the South," in the South Atlantic Quarterly for 
October, 1914. McCarthy, Lincoln's Plan of Reconstruction. New York, 
1901. McDonald, Select Statutes and Other Documents Illustrative of the 
History- of the United States, 1861-1898. New York, 1903. McPherson, 



336 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

The Political History of the United States of America during the Period 
of Reconstruction, 3d edition. Washington, 1880. Noble, Forty Years of 
the Public Schools of Mississippi. New York, 191 8. Poore, The Federal 
and State Constitutions, 2 vols. Washington, 1877. Proceedings, Peabody 
Board Trustees, for 1868 to 1877. Cambridge, annual after 1867. Pro- 
ceedings of the constitutional convention of the various States. Pub- 
lic documents of the various States (including reports of the various 
state officers, messages of the governors, and accompanying papers). 
Ramage, Local Government and Free Schools in South Carolina (Johns Hop- 
kins University Studies in History and Political Science). Baltimore, 1883. 
Ramsdell, Reconstruction in Texas. New York, 1910. Reports of the 
Superintendent of Public Instruction of the various States. Reynolds, 
Reconstruction in South Carolina. Columbia, 1905. Scott, Reconstruc- 
tion during the Civil War in the United States of America. Boston, 
1895. Thompson, Reconstruction in Georgia. New York, 1915. Thorpe, 
Federal and State Constitutions, 7 vols. Washington, 1909. Wallace, 
Carpetbag Rule in Florida. Jacksonville, 1888. Weeks, "Calvin Hender- 
son Wiley and the Organization of the Common Schools in North CaroUna," 
in Report of the United States Commissioner of Education, 1896-1897, 
Vol. II. Weeks, History of Public School Education in Arkansas. Wash- 
ington, 1912. Weeks, History of Public School Education in Alabama. 
Washington, 1915. Weeks, History of Public School Education in Ten- 
nessee (examined in manuscript). WasoN, History of the Reconstruction 
Measures of the Thirty-Ninth and Fortieth Congresses. Hartford, 1868. 
Wooley, Reconstruction in Georgia. New York, 1901. 



CHAPTER X 
EDUCATION DURING RECONSTRUCTION 

Outline of the chapter, i. Constitutional and legal provisions 
proved to be insufficient for the adequate promotion of public educa- 
tion, and throughout reconstruction and for many years afterward the 
schools were forced to struggle for their existence. 

2. Financial difficulties, diversion of school funds, and the agitation 
of the Civil Rights Bill were among the obstacles encountered by 
public education in Virginia. 

3. The schools in Georgia were also afflicted by the social disorder 
and upheaval of the period ; the requirement for mixed schools and 
certain other difficulties prevented educational progress in Louisiana. 

4. Bitterness and violence, fraud and mismanagement, reached the 
schools in Florida and crippled their usefulness. Public education was 
demoralized in Mississippi by similar causes. 

5. The schools "literally died of starvation" in Arkansas; political 
and social disorder and the misapphcation of school funds rendered 
the school system "a nulhty and a sham" in Tennessee, and similar 
conditions prevailed in Texas, with like results. 

6. Lack of funds, defective legislation, partisan strife, fraud and 
extravagance, brought failure to the schools in North Carolina, South 
Carolina, and Alabama. But here, as in all the States, there was 
slight promise of improvement after 1876. 

7. In reaction to the regime of riot and misgovernment from 1868 
to 1876 partisan political feelings continued to run high for several 
years following the undoing of reconstruction. Again the schools wei'e 
subordinated to less worthy interests as a result of ills which had their 
beginnings in reconstruction. 

It was noted in the preceding chapter that during the early 
years of congressional reconstruction the legal provisions for 
schools in the South were improved. This reform appeared, how- 
ever, not only in the Southern States. In other sections of the 

337 



V 



S3S PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

country during the same time constitutional provisions for schools 
were revised, school legislation was improved, and provisions for 
better educational facilities were generally made. The educa- 
tional changes of the period were not confined to any section. 

But public education in the South required for its adequate 
promotion more than constitutional and legislative provisions for 
financial support and administrative direction. Important as 
such provisions were, they were insufficient for the peculiar con- 
ditions of the time. Confidence needed to be restored, the 
principle of public education for the children of all classes and 
of both races needed to be firmly established in the public mind, 
and the men and women of the South needed to have their 
faces turned toward the future. Here is the point at which educa- 
tional reconstruction in the South failed ; and in this failure 
appeared the chief cause of complaint against the activities of 
the time and the chief explanation of the educational lethargy 
in the South for a quarter of a century afterwards. 

Throughout those subsequent years the iniquities of recon- 
struction were keenly felt in education, and the public schools 
literally struggled for their existence. Defective legislation, de- 
fective organization which wore for many years the color of 
partisan politics, and the deadening of public interest through the 
unwarranted agitation of the new position of the negro were 
among the unwholesome and peculiar conditions which retarded 
the growth of public education. These obstacles appeared early, 
and some of them have not yet been removed. Their harmful 
influence in the various Southern States will appear in this brief 
treatment of the operation of the schools during and for several 
years following reconstruction. 

It was noted in the preceding chapter that the school system 
set up in Virginia during reconstruction was largely the work of 
the conservative element of that State, even though membership 
in the constitutional convention and in the early Legislature was 
largely radical. That plan, however, met with many obstacles. 
Strong sentiment favoring church schools, apparent hostility of 



EDUCATION DURING RECONSTRUCTION 339 

the well-to-do toward public schools, the poor economic condition 
of the State, and the element of charity which the poorer classes 
saw in a public-school system all served as difficulties to confront 
Superintendent Ruffner. But he began his work at once. County 
superintendents and local trustees were appointed and were given 
instructions by means of letters, circulars, and through the 
columns of the Educational Journal, a magazine established in 
1869 as the organ of the Virginia Educational Association. 
Schools were organized, the school census taken, teachers were 
examined and commissioned, and by 1871 the administrative 
part of the school machinery was in large measure ready for 
operation. But as late as January, 187 1, all the public-school 
money was not available, and in fully half the counties of the 
State schools were forced to open by means of private subscription. 
Not a few of the schools thus supported previously existed as 
private schools. They were now adopted as public schools, though 
the teachers continued to receive remuneration from their patrons 
as well as from public funds. This combination of private and 
public funds proved a very popular means of school support. 

The sudden demand for teachers made the problems of their 
supply very difficult. But Ruffner believed that the reverses 
which had come to so many of "our most cultivated people were 
incidentally converted into blessings to the children of the State 
by furnishing a large number of accomplished teachers." The 
qualifications of most of the teachers were not always what could 
have been desired, because many communities were unable to pay 
salaries sufficient to secure the best talent available. It was very 
difficult to secure teachers for the negro schools, but there seems 
to have been no disposition to discriminate against the education 
of the negro, even though a radical, political, and social change 
had suddenly taken place. In many places the white people, who 
had greater means, often voluntarily contributed enough to open 
a "proportionate number of schools for the colored." 

The increase in schools, teachers, and enrollment during the 
first two years of the new system was encouraging to the 



340 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

superintendent. "Considering the embarrassments imder which the 
mighty work of universal education was begun and has been con- 
tinued," he said, "we have reason to thank God and take courage." 
But attendance decreased during the third year, on account of bad 
roads, bad weather, contagious and epidemic diseases, poverty, and 
the unwillingness of parents to continue to send their children to 
teachers who were found to be incompetent. "Whenever school 
officers committed the error of unduly multiplying schools, thus 
rendering it necessary to employ 'cheap' teachers," said Ruffner, 
"there is no reason to go beyond this fact in search of a reason 
for a decline in numbers." At the same time he declared that the 
more promptly the people would manifest their disapprobation of 
poor schools and poor teachers, "the sooner can we bring our 
school system up to a high degree of efficiency." This principle, 
which is as sound now as it was then, the South has never yet 
fully adopted. And only by its complete acceptance can the 
schools in that region achieve their full purposes. 

Lack of facilities for teacher-training was another weakness 
' of the school system. The constitution required the Legislature to 
establish normal schools "as soon as practicable," but this mandate 
was not being observed. There were two normal schools for 
negroes, one at Richmond and one at Hampton, both largely 
supported by contributions from the North and supplied with 
well-trained teachers who were instructing more than three hun- 
dred pupils. But no provision had yet been made for the white 
teachers of the State, few if any of whom had received any 
professional training. Ruffner greatly deplored this neglect and 
pointed out that the schools were filled with " raw apprentices, who 
must of necessity do a great deal of bad work. How long is this 
wretched economy to continue ? How long are the children of the 
State to be denied the advantages of really good teaching? Why 
use the last dollar to multiply schools when we are already wasting 
money on hundreds of schools that are worth nothing? When 
shall the idea be fastened in the public that it is not schools we 
are after, but education ? We are in the fifth year of the school 



EDUCATION DURING RECONSTRUCTION 341 

system, and yet not a dollar of public funds has been spent on 
teachers. The constitution requires that normal schools shall be 
established as soon as practicable. It has been practicable to do 
something in this direction from the beginning. We have been 
working with dull tools in order to save the cost of a grindstone ! " 

He repeatedly urged the establishment of at least one normal -^ 
school and urged provision by which counties could expend $100 
or $2 00 a year to secure competent instructors for their teachers 
in institutes, but nothing had yet come of the recommendation. 
Bills on the subject were occasionally introduced in the Legis- 
lature, but lack of effective public sentiment resulted in their 
failure of passage. This neglect of providing for the training of 
teachers was widely felt. "The number of applicants now is too 
small, and the grade of their qualification too low, to excite whole- 
some emulation," said one county official ; and another declared 
that the supply of teachers was very largely confined to that 
class who adopted teaching to " eke out a support." 

Another obstacle to public education appeared in the reaction ^^■ 
which was largely produced by a diversion of the school funds 
between 1870 and 1876. In his sixth annual report Ruffner re- 
ferred to the tardiness with which the funds were paid over to the 
schools. For more than a year he was active in his efforts to 
secure legislative attention to this condition, to have the funds 
restored, and to make impossible the continuance or future recur- 
rence of such diversion of money so sacredly dedicated by both 
constitution and law to purposes of public education. 

The difficulty was of a complicated nature and revealed the 
defects of reconstruction legislation. The constitution had im- 
posed on the Legislature the duty of applying the capitation and 
certain property taxes to school support ; the Legislature obeyed 
the constitution on this point, fixed the capitation tax at one dollar, 
and im.posed a property tax of one mill on the dollar. By an act 
of March 30, 187 1, known as the funding bill, which provided 
for funding and paying the public debt, holders of state bonds 
could exchange them for new bonds whose coupons were to be 



342 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

"receivable for all taxes, dues, debts and demands due the State." 
By act of March 7, 1872, which was neither approved nor vetoed 
by the governor, the act of March 30, 187 1, was repealed ; the cou- 
pons were no longer to be receivable for taxes, but taxes were to be 
paid in gold or silver coin, United States treasury notes, or notes 
of the national banks of the United States, and officers were for- 
bidden to receive anything else for them. Thus, by the constitution 
and law of the State a certain amount of revenue at a fixed rate 
was to be raised and applied to education. By subsequent legisla- 
tion such revenue could, to the extent of the coupons issuable, be 
paid in tax-receivable coupons. A later act made it necessary to 
pay taxes in money. 

Suit was soon instituted to compel officers in Richmond to 
receive coupons for taxes, and the circuit court issued a mandamus 
requiring a sheriff to receive the coupons, thus recognizing the 
act of March 30, 1871, The case was appealed and the decision 
given in December, 1872. The court held that the act of 
March 30, 1871, constituted a contract on the part of the State 
which subsequent legislation could not impair; that the act of 
March 7, 1872, was unconstitutional in that a State could not 
make laws impairing the obligation of contracts; and that the 
act of March 30, 1871, was not in conflict with the constitution 
of the State, which dedicated certain revenue to public-school 
purposes. 

On this last point the court held that the interest on the bonds 
of the State could be paid in the manner prescribed and the 
provisions for schools still be respected, and suggested an in- 
crease in taxation if the existing rate proved insufficient. ''The 
obligation to provide for the interest due by the coupons is as 
high as the duty of applying the capitation tax and other funds 
to the schools. Both duties are alike obligatory, and both may 
be discharged as there is no conflict between them." It was only 
by a failure to discharge the one that the performance of the other 
could be put in jeopardy ; and the Legislature, by faithfully and 



EDUCATION DURING RECONSTRUCTION 343 

fearlessly meeting both obligations, was expected to preserve the 
"plighted faith of the State and protect her constitution from 
violation." 

Later, when motion was referred for a rehearing of the case, 
a member of the court took occasion to say that if it were im- 
practicable to raise sufficient revenue for both the state debt and 
the schools, the latter did not "impose an obligation on the 
Legislature paramount to the obligation to provide for the pay- 
ment of the interest on the public debt. That was an obligation 
antecedent and paramount to the constitution itself, and could 
not be repudiated by the constitution, if it had so provided . . . 
and, furthermore, this being an obligation of debt, and not 
eleemosynary in its character, as are the other provisions referred 
to, however desirable and important it may be that they should 
be carried out, I hesitate not to say, this is of higher obligation. 
A man must be just before he can be generous." 

The dissenting member of the court held that the constitutional 
provision for school support had been violated and that the Legis- 
lature had no right to apply to the state debt "a fund sacredly 
dedicated to the cause of education." He cited supreme-court 
decisions of Iowa and California to support his opinion "that 
whenever the Legislature raises a fund, by taxation or otherwise, 
for the support of common schools, it cannot, by any contempo- 
raneous or subsequent legislation, divert the fund to a different 
purpose" ; and that school revenue, when collected, by force of the 
constitution became inviolably appropriated to school purposes. 
The practical operation of the funding bill, in his opinion, defeated 
the object of the constitution in regard to schools. 

Another case further illustrated the actual situation. James 
Clarke was fined $30 in the Hustings Court of Richmond and in 
payment of the fine offered a $30 coupon, which the court refused. 
On failure to pay in money Clarke was placed in jail. Ap- 
plication for a writ of habeas corpus was made to the supreme 
court, and the prisoner was discharged. The case brought up the 



344 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

question of the payment in coupons of fines which were expressly 
set apart for educational purposes. The decision of the court was 
based on the principle, given in the case described above, that 
the act of March 30, 1871, was constitutional. The court held 
that the school funds were sacred and the duty to education was 
paramount, but however sacred and high, such an obligation 
should not be met at the sacrifice of other obligations. ''The 
people must be educated, but they must not be educated at the 
price of repudiation and dishonor. Better would be ignorance 
than enlightenment purchased at such a fearful price." The dis- 
senting justice argued as before. He saw no difference between 
a law which applied fines directly to the payment of interest on the 
public debt and one which gave authority for the payment of such 
fines in coupons ; he held that the Legislature could not divert a 
fund from its constitutional purpose and justify its conduct by 
depending on some future Legislature to provide the deficiency by 
taxation. "It is the duty of the Legislature, by taxation, to pay 
the public debt. If it fails to do so, it cannot justify its action 
by giving to the creditor a fund not under its control." 

It will be seen that from the outset there would be considerable 
difficulty in paying to schools the "funds they were entitled to 
receive. When the taxes were to be paid partly in coupons, how 
could the schools receive money? Moreover, there was no au- 
thority to reissue the coupons, but they were ordered canceled ; 
and the system of bookkeeping in use made it difficult to show the 
proportionate share of revenue belonging to schools. The revenue 
came into the treasury in money and coupons in the proportion 
of nearly half and half. Probably more than $250,000 of school 
funds was annually absorbed by the coupons. The school funds 
were not paid into the treasury separately, but in common with 
other revenue ; but all expenditures were made only on the war- 
rant of the auditor, and the schools got what was left after 
warrants had been drawn for other governmental expenses. The 
auditor in his annual report stated the amount of money he 
had turned over to the schools without stating how much had 



EDUCATION DURING RECONSTRUCTION 345 

actually been received for education. By an act of March, 1873, 
he was ordered to pay in cash all money for school purposes. But 
fiscal complications were even then not avoided and the difficulty 
was not removed, because the amount paid in coupons was such a 
large part of the total revenues that the actual cash received was 
not sufficient to pay the schools their share except at the expense of 
other interests equally as sacred perhaps as education. 

The diversion of funds did not become generally known until 
January, 1876. Superintendent Ruffner constantly sought official 
statement of the actual amount diverted and endeavored to have 
a bill enacted which would give him authority to obtain this 
information, but the bill died in the hands of the committee. The 
vitality of the school system was therefore put in the greatest 
jeopardy. A later report and demand of the superintendent led 
directly to senate inquiries. 

Different official statements disagreed as to the actual amounts 
due the schools. The superintendent believed that $1,113,000 
at least had been diverted. Delinquent revenues due by de- 
faulting officers were said to be numerous, some of which had to 
be collected by suits and were therefore naturally subject to all 
delays incident to litigation. Some were lost by the insolvency of 
the officers, and still others were abated or compromised by special 
acts of the Legislature. Much of the actual revenue came after 
considerable delay, irregularly and in very small sums. Moreover, 
a large amount had been lost to the schools by an injunction of 
a. Federal court which suspended a certain law on liquor taxation. 
The amount due schools was thus gradually increasing. More 
than $1,000,000 was due from the assessed revenue for schools, 
about $78,000 was due from certain corporation taxes, more than 
$380,000 was due on arrears of interest on the literary fund, and 
$40,000 was due on fines, making a total of about $1,500,000 due 
and unpaid to the schools of the State during the first eight years 
of the new system. 

A large curtailment in the operation of the schools was the re- 
sult, and the effect was very damaging. Reports from many of 



346 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

the counties showed considerable dissatisfaction and discontent 
with the system, and the opponents of public education industri- 
ously made use of the diversion of funds to awaken complaints 
among those who were ignorant of the operation of the schools 
and impatient for their perfection. When the dark days came 
in 1878 and 1879, schools were temporarily suspended in many 
places, and in others the term was considerably decreased. Teach- 
ers were not paid, or their warrants went begging for buyers 
at large discounts. There was general relaxation of educational 
effort. Nearly 100,000 children were kept from school; in Rich- 
mond alone 1000 children were unable to enter. The mischief 
of the condition was brought home to the people generally and with 
a keenness which excited extensive discontent and which showed 
itself in various legislative petitions from 1876 to 1879. 

It should be kept in mind that no censure for these conditions 
attached to the state officers. The root of the unfortunate matter 
was in the defective legislation of the early years of reconstruction 
and the defects of the accounting system of the State. The fund- 
ing bill was probably passed precipitately in consequence of certain 
exaggerated estimates of the resources of the State. Moreover, 
it was generally believed that the bill was passed by "unwarrant- 
able means" and in direct violation of the will of the people. 
Whether the framers of the law were consciously and deliberately 
guilty of fraud is difficult to determine, but it seems certain that 
they there planted some seeds of repudiation from which they 
may have had faint hope later to reap bountifully. 

As early as 1876 it was evident that the force of the will of the 
people was at work. The men and party that had failed in their 
opportunity to foster education "were tried and condemned at 
the bar of public opinion, and removed from power by the verdict 
of the people. . . ." This popular sentiment was manifested the 
following year, when a Legislature was elected pledged to restore 
to the schools the funds which had been used for other purposes. 
The result of the election also showed that the people were ready 
to indorse the other principle involved, "that in the settlement 



EDUCATION DURING RECONSTRUCTION 347 

of the public debt there must be no compromise of the honor of 
the State — no outrage upon the rights of the pubUc creditor." 

The Legislature, which was largely conservative, immediately 
took steps to ascertain the causes of the deficiency in the school 
funds and how the money could be restored, and by joint resolu- 
tion the auditor was directed to pay to the literary fund the 
amounts due the public schools. A similar resolution had been 
introduced in the session of 1876-1877, but no effectual relief 
was secured until the act of March 14, 1878, which required 
the auditor to return the arrearages due the school fund in $15,000 
quarterly installments, beginning July i, 1878, and to continue 
without " further order, demand, or requisition, until full payment 
shall have been made of all arrearages due from the capitation 
and property taxes set apart by mandate of the constitution and 
law of the state for the support of the public free school sys- 
tem. . . ." By subsequent legislation these quarterly installments 
were increased to $25,000. At the same session legislation com- 
monly known as the "Barbour Bill" was passed, prescribing the 
manner in which school funds should be collected and requiring 
them to be paid to the literary fund and used only for education. 
By this act certain percentages of the taxes were to be collected 
in money and twenty-five cents on the hundred dollars were to 
go to support the government, ten cents to support schools, and 
fifteen cents to pay the interest on the public debt, the right to 
use coupons within the limit of these percentages being distinctly 
stated. Governor Holliday vetoed the bill March i, 1878, and 
the veto was later sustained by the Legislature. 

The governor gave reasons for vetoing the measure: ''Instead 
of bringing peace, it is challenging war between the State and 
its creditors, and keeping alive in bitterness a thing which has 
already, by its agitation, cost more than its whole sum to the 
material interests and welfare of the commonwealth." The matter 
should no longer be kept in controversy. In the second place 
the governor denied "that the legislature is bound to support 
the free-school system at the expense of the State's creditors . . . 



348 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

public free schools are not a necessity. The world, for hundreds 
of years, grew in wealth, culture, and refinement, without them. 
They are a luxury, adding, when skillfully conducted, it may be, 
to the beauty and power of a State, but to be paid for, like any 
other luxury by the people who wish their benefits." He pro- 
nounced the bill ''a proclamation of war against those to whom we 
are in debt." 

His argument was not unlike that used by other officials who 
jealously guarded the State's credit. So eager were some of them 
to save the credit of the State that their reasoning could easily 
be interpreted as displaying an attitude somewhat hostile to edu- 
cation, though such was hardly the case. The auditor believed 
that all claims which were authorized and directed to be paid 
were equally entitled to their proportionate share of the currency, 
and he saw no reason why the schools should be an exception to 
this principle. In December, 1877, Governor Kemper said in his 
message to the Legislature: 

In an issue of life and death between the State and the school sys- 
tem, is it to be said that the State must perish and the schools survive ? 
Does the bond of the constitution so nominate and exalt any one of 
the departments over all others, that It may, whenever the letter of the 
bond is forfeit, cut its pound of flesh from the body of the State, 
nearest its heart, even at the sacrifice of the life of the State ? . . . 

The school system is the creation of the organic law. The consti- 
tutional obligation to maintain it is not questioned. In all my official 
relations to that system, I have endeavored to support it fairly, 
efficiently and in the spirit of its founders. But if it is to override all 
other interests however momentous or sacred ; if the claims of the 
school department upon the funds of the general treasury constitute 
a lien paramount to every other ; if the existence of the government, 
in an emergency, is to be dependent upon the leniency of that depart- 
ment ; then, the sooner it is shorn of its dangerous supremacy the 
better. 

By act of March 3, 1879, known as the "Henkel Bill," pro- 
vision was made to secure to the schools the money set apart by 
the constitution and laws for that purpose, and the auditor was 



EDUCATION DURING RECONSTRUCTION 349 

required to calculate the total revenue applicable to public schools 
and to report his estimate to the state superintendent as a basis 
for distribution. By this law 75 per cent of the estimated money 
for schools was to be left in the counties. Later the act was so 
amended as to leave in the counties 90 per cent of the estimated 
revenue applicable to schools. 

Subsequent legislation was even more just and liberal to the 
cause of public education. By acts of February and April, 1882, 
the sum of $400,000, in four equal annual installments, was to be 
appropriated to the further credit on arrearages due the schools. 
This was part of the $500,000 received on account of the sale of 
the State's interest in the Atlantic, Mississippi, and Ohio Railway. 
The act making the appropriation declared that "whereas out of 
the revenues assessed for the years" 1870 to 1879 a sum amount- 
ing to more than $1,504,000 and dedicated by the constitution 
to public education "was diverted to other purposes" prior to 
1880, "the general assembly conceives it to be its paramount 
duty" to restore said school fund as speedily as possible. The 
remaining $100,000 of the proceeds of the sale was to be spent 
in the erection and maintenance of a normal school for colored 
teachers. 

It was believed by some that this $500,000 belonged to the 
sinking fund and should be placed there, and suit was accordingly 
instituted to prohibit the board of education from applying the 
money as the Legislature had ordered. In June, 1882, an in- 
junction was granted restraining the board from carrying out 
the provisions of the act. Appeal was taken to the supreme 
court in December of that year, and the injunction was dissolved 
and the money restored to the schools. The plaintiff sought the 
United States Supreme Court for an appeal and supersedeas, 
which was not granted, and the money was ordered paid to the 
board of education, January, 1883.^ 

From now on conditions changed. The financial management 
of the schools showed decided improvement after 1878, made 
1 Knight, Reconstruction and Education in Virginia. 



350 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

possible by relief afforded by the legislation described above. The 
money which had been diverted was gradually repaid. In March, 
1884, in response to an inquiry of the senate finance committee, 
the auditor furnished a statement of the amounts due the schools 
saying that the arrearages account would soon be settled in full. 
Another slight shadow was temporarily thrown across the path 
of public education in the State near the close of reconstruction 
by a newspaper controversy which also had damaging effect. 
The principal participants were the superintendent of public in- 
struction and Dr. R. L. Dabney, minister, and professor in 
Hampden-Sidney College, a man who represented the educational 
philosophy of aristocratic, ante-bellum Virginia, but hardly the 
prevailing educational theory of post-bellum days. The contro- 
versy consisted of a series of letters published in the newspapers 
of Richmond. "Your 'free' schools," wrote Dr. Dabney, ad- 
dressing the superintendent, "like not a few of the other pre- 
tentions of radicalism, are in fact exactly opposite to the name 
falsely assumed. The great bulk of those who pay the money 
for them do it, not 'freely,' but by compulsion. It [the school 
system] has become mischievous and tyrannical, in that it forces 
on us the useless, impractical, mischievous, and dishonest attempt 
to teach literary arts to all negroes, when the State is unable to pay 
its debts and provide for its welfare. . . ." He advocated uni- 
versal education provided it was true education, by which he 
meant education on the "old Virginia plan." He argued that 
the principle by which " the State intrudes into the parental obli- 
gation and function of educating all children is dangerous and 
agrarian," and the theory that the children belong to the State he 
pronounced pagan, "derived from heathen Sparta and Plato's 
heathen Republic. . . ." Moreover, he held that crime and pov- 
erty increased in proportion to the amount of scholastic instruction 
given. Besides, there was a natural humiliation in accepting the 
charity of the State. He believed that ignorance and its conse- 
quences must needs be hereditary, and that knowledge, culture, 
and virtue are not to be extended beyond the fortunate youth for 



EDUCATION DURING RECONSTRUCTION 351 

whom their parents secure them. The rigor of this law might 
be somewhat relaxed, but not by the civil magistrate or the 
State. "The agency must be social and Christian." 

Ruffner's replies to Dabney were friendly, though the urgency 
of championing the cause of popular education was sufficient 
excuse for firmness and keenness of statement : 

I must be allowed to say that you do not represent Virginia either 
present or past : not even colonial Virginia : still less the Virginia of 
Washington, Jefferson, Madison and Monroe : nor of the elder John 
Tyler, James Barbour and W. C. Nicholas : nor of James P. Preston, 
Thomas M. Randolph and William B. Giles : nor of John Floyd, David 
Campbell and James McDowell : nor the Virginia of today ; and I shall 
prove it. 

Here as elsewhere during his labors for public education Ruffner 
sought to make clear the principle of universal education, free 
and open to all the youth of the State ; and now as at other times 
his arguments were convincing and effective. In the end the 
controversy may have had the effect of slightly stimulating the 
feeble-hearted, though in a few instances there is evidence that 
Dr. Dabney's arguments caused some discontent with the system.^ 

Similar financial and administrative difficulties appeared in 
practically every other Southern State after 1868 as a result 
of defective legislation of the reconstruction period. Conflicts 
between provisions of the constitutions and of the laws gave 
considerable trouble generally. Other weaknesses and defects of 
reconstruction legislation appeared in matters of administration, 
local direction and support, and from many of these ills the South 
has not yet recovered. Some of the troubles inherited from this 
period will be pointed out in a later chapter. 

The case of Virginia will also serve to illustrate another obstacle 
which stood in the way of public educational advancement. This 
appeared in the agitation in Congress of the Civil Rights Bill, 
which looked to securing to the freedmen rights identical with 

^Knight, Reconstruction and Education in Virginia. 



352 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

whites in hotels, public conveyances, schools, churches, and the- 
aters. Its baneful influence was widely felt in every part of the 
South, especially during the years 1873 and 1874 and even after- 
wards. Opposition to the proposed measure was widespread not 
only among the conservative white people but among the negroes 
themselves, whose interests could not have been promoted by it. 

The measure passed the Senate in May, 1874, and had consid- 
erable support in the House of Representatives, but not enough 
to prevent its defeat. The effect of the agitation and the fear 
of future attempts to enact the measure served to damage educa- 
tional effort and interest. Contracts for building schoolhouses 
were canceled, engagements with teachers were suspended, school 
officials resigned, and state legislation which looked to an im- 
provement of schools was delayed on account of the bill. The 
actual effect of the proposed measure on public education in 
the South generally may be seen from certain reports of counties 
in Virginia: 

Brunswick : There is still some opposition to our school system, but 
that would die out if the agitation of the civil rights question could 
be hushed up. 

Campbell : The impending civil rights bill has somewhat checked 
progress. 

Franklin : . . . But should the civil rights bill, or any bill provid- 
ing for mixed schools, be passed by congress, the white people of the 
county will, with one voice, say "Away, away with the public school 
system." 

Green and Madison : Our people build school-houses and are very 
much inclined to improve in that direction ; but the civil rights bill 
looms up before them and frightens them from their prosperity. 

Henrico : There is still a deep-seated prejudice with some against the 
system, and this can never be removed while the abominable "civil 
rights" agitation is an open question. 

King William : While the matter was before congress a prejudice 

was excited in this county which "would have destroyed the whole 

system, had the measure passed and an effort been made to enforce 

it. Apart from the fear of federal intervention, the people very gener- 

• ally advocate a system of public education, and are looking to the time 



EDUCATION DURING RECONSTRUCTION 353 

* 

when Virginia will be left to manage her own affairs, to form a system of 
public education for the benefit of all her citizens. . . . The white peo- 
ple in the county were willing in all cases to accord to the colored equal 
advantages of the school system and perfect equality before the law. 

Lancaster and Northumberland : Public sentiment in some degree 
has varied during the scholastic year, owing to the vexed and unsettled 
question of civil rights. Since the failure to pass that bill through 
congress the sentiment of the community has become more calm, and 
a large majority of our cleverest and best population will sustain and 
uphold the free school system. 

Loiidoim: Here the people were wiUing and eager to "contribute 
to the building of houses and to employ the public teachers by apply- 
ing private funds in extending the session at the expiration of the public 
school terms. They were beginning to unite heartily with us in our 
labors, and our work would have progressed satisfactorily if the pros- 
pect of the disastrous consequences of the enforcement of the civil 
rights bill had not warned them against further action. In several 
instances promised assistance was withdrawn and our friends have re- 
laxed their efforts in dread of the threatened suspension or destruction 
of our schools by congressional interference." 

Mecklenburg : Some of the districts in this county had building 
funds in hand, but refused to do anything while the matter was being 
agitated in congress. In some townships work on school-houses was 
actually suspended for this reason. 

Rockbridge : Public sentiment seems to have retrograded in Rock- 
bridge in regard to the school system, during the past year; no doubt 
owing to the civil rights movement in congress. The people see very 
plainly how they may soon be forced to abandon the system of public 
schools entirely, or submit to its being made a means of social deg- 
radation and poHtical oppression. Hence they are inclined to look with 
more or less suspicion on what seems to be fraught with so much 
danger. 

Southampton and Surry : Operations to build and equip school- 
houses were resumed as soon as it appeared that the bill would be 
defeated in congress. 

Ruffner believed that if the bill had been enacted "our school 
system would have received its deathblow in two hours after the 
fact became known to the Legislature. Many building and other 
enterprises instantly halted, subdued opposition revived, and, 



354 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

strange to say, some schools suddenly lost most of their pupils. 
The growing feeling of cordiality toward the education of the 
colored people was chilled." 

Georgia suffered less from the social disorder and upheaval of 
the period during the actual process of reconstruction than some 
of the other Southern States, but the general condition of the times 
was even there not conducive to educational enthusiasm. More- 
over, certain evils of the years 1868 to 1872, when the conserva- 
tives regained final control of the State, lived on in their influence 
for many years and in many ways retarded a wholesome educa- 
tional growth. 

The machinery provided for the school system under the law 
of 1870 was made ready immediately thereafter, although very 
little was accomplished until nearly three years later, when the 
conservatives "brought some order out of the chaotic treasury" 
and set the public schools in general operation throughout the 
State. The original law under the reconstruction regime soon 
revealed many defects. Among these was the difficulty experi- 
enced in selecting suitable supervisory and administrative officers 
for the local organization. Good men were occasionally found for 
the position of county boards of education and county school com- 
missioners, but those who were opposed to the system or who 
took no interest in it generally resigned or declined to serve when 
appointed. But it was frequently impossible to obtain a quorum 
at the meetings of the county board, and at meetings with full 
attendance it was very difficult to secure the definite action that 
was necessary. There appeared a lack of confidence in the 
permanency of the system, and discouragement arose as a result 
of meager school revenues. Between 1868 and 1872 most of 
the public-school funds were diverted to other purposes, with the 
result that the public schools were suspended in 1872. 

With the return of home rule in 1872 Gustavus J. Orr became 
state superintendent of schools, a position which he continued 
to occupy with remarkable success until his death, in 1887. In 
his first report Orr spoke of "the utter lack of school funds" 



EDUCATION DURING RECONSTRUCTION 355 

and certain defects of the school law of 1870 which "have pre- 
vented the inauguration of schools very generally throughout the 
entire State." He urged legislative change of the school plan and 
patience to give the schools a fair trial. He also recommended 
that the Legislature provide for restoring the school funds which 
had been diverted under radical rule. This recommendation, as 
well as that for an improved school law, was acted on favor- 
ably, and the diverted school funds were restored under authority 
of an act of August, 1872, and subsequent legislation.^ Thus 
the conservatives in Georgia, as in Virginia, returned to the 
schools the funds diverted from their legitimate object by the 
reconstructionists. 

Gradually the schools began to recover and to establish them- 
selves, though progress during the next few years was slow. In 
1873 the school population was 343,000, with only 76,000 enrolled 
and only 32,000 in average attendance. The school term was 
sixty -six days. The following year 121,000 were enrolled and 
76,000 were in average daily attendance. In 1875 the enrollment 
and average attendance were slightly larger than in 1874, and 
the school term had increased to seventy-five days. Minor 
changes had been made in the school legislation since the passage 
of the new school law of 1872, and the friends of education were 
making every effort to bring the schools to a creditable place in 
the public mind. 

Another constitution was adopted for Georgia in 1877 with 
new and more definite and more advanced educational provisions, 
and in December of that year Orr said : 

The public school system of Georgia is steadily gaining ground and 
may now be considered firmly established in the State. The new 
constitution incorporates in its provisions the same essential require- 
ments on this subject as those contained in the constitution of 1868. 
This is a great step for us, as one of the greatest difiiculties in the 
way of success was for a long time the prejudice arising from the 

^See also act of March 3, 1874. 



356 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

manner of the adoption of the common school system. This feeUng 
arose from the fact that the instrument above mentioned was made by 
a body which did not represent the people of Georgia, and many of 
whose acts were very odious to them. This sentiment, however, can 
no longer exist, as the convention of 1877 was composed of men of 
our own selection, and their work has been overwhelmingly ratified 
by the people at the polls. Thus a barrier to progress, already melting 
away, is now entirely gone. 

Following the passage of the school law in March, 1869, a 
board of education was organized for Louisiana and steps were 
taken immediately to put the new school system into operation. 
But suitable persons were difficult to find to serve as local school 
officers, there appeared an opposition to taxation for public-school 
purposes, and the state school fund was hardly sufficient to main- 
tain schools for more than a month in the year. Immediate need 
appeared for an amendment to the school law so as to supply 
adequate funds and to simplify the school machinery. That par- 
ticular feature of the law which provided for compulsory mixed 
schools continued to render ''the whole system obnoxious" until 
a system more conformable to the habits of the people was 
introduced in 1877. 

In 1870, according to the report of T. W. Conway, the state 
superintendent of schools, the school population numbered 
253,000, but only 23,000 were enrolled in only 230 schools, with 
524 teachers. The school system was proving to be very defective 
and very difficult to administer, and it was subjected to " constant 
clinic treatment" by the Legislature throughout the reconstruction 
period, but without very great success. 

The requirement that all public schools should be open alike 
to all children of educable age without distinction of race or color 
went far toward preventing the successful operation of . the 
system. The need for modifying the law and the rules of the 
state board of education appeared urgent from the outset. There 
was probably no other State in which the work of public schools 
was attempted under more discouraging disadvantages than those 



EDUCATION DURING RECONSTRUCTION 357 

encountered in Louisiana. But the mixed-school provisions ex- 
cited a determined opposition generally and especially on the part 
of those who would otherwise have cooperated in the support of 
the school plan. On this point Conway said : 

It was irrational to overlook the fact that this active antagonism 
of so large a portion of the white population of the State is a formid- 
able hindrance to our school work. However unreasonable it may be 
shown to be and unworthy the intelligence of the age, its undeniable 
existence and influence must be taken into account in any estimate 
of past progress or of future prospects. The noblest vessel, however 
ably managed, makes but slow progress when forced to contend with 
both wind and tide. 



Principally on account of this condition but little progress 
was made in public education in Louisiana during the recon- 
struction period. And largely on account of the mixed-school 
plan the Peabody Board was unable to cooperate with the state 
authorities until the close of the period. The benefit of the 
public-school funds was being enjoyed chiefly by the colored 
children, and the white children were generally without the 
advantages of public education. At best, however, very little was 
actually achieved for the children of either race. Out of a school 
population of 280,000 only 30,000 were in school in 1872, and 
three years later conditions had improved only slightly and re- 
mained unsatisfactory until after 1876, when the State was 
restored to home rule. By that time the sum of $2,137,000 of the 
school funds had been misapplied by the reconstructionists. By 
1877 a new school system had been inaugurated under conservative 
influence, and Mr. Sears, of the Peabody Board, reported that 
''the present prospect is that all classes of the people will unite 
in the work of education." 

It was noted in the preceding chapter that the reconstruction 
constitution and the school of law of January, 1869, gave Florida 
provisions for an educational organization which was theoretically 
an improvement over the plan in operation during the ante-bellum 



3S8 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

period. This advanced plan proved ineffective, however, to any 
really creditable achievement in public-school affairs, and it was 
many years after the undoing of the reconstruction rule that 
schools began to enjoy their rightful share of public confidence. 
Distrust of and indifference to public education characterized the 
years from 1868 to 1877 ^^^ were largely the result of the bitter- 
ness and violence which prevailed and the open and shameless 
bribery and fraud which were so generally practiced throughout 
the period. Florida suffered many injustices and terrors at the 
hands of the reconstructionists, who, through corruption and mis- 
government of a most revolting nature, betrayed the State that 
they might enrich themselves.^ 

In counties with superintendents appointed under the law 
of January, 1869, the organization of the public-school system 
was undertaken without delay. But the general inauguration of 
the plan was slov*?^, and in 187 1 the reports showed that fully 
three fourths of the children of the State were yet "unreached 
by the educational system." In general the disturbed .condition 
of the State and other unfortunate circumstances were very 
unfavorable to public schools. In 1873 the school population 
numbered approximately 75,000, with nearly 20,000 enrolled and 
about 15,000 in average attendance. Some of the schools reported 
were not strictly public schools, but were controlled and sup- 
ported in large measure by philanthropic or other similar agencies. 
Throughout these years opposition to the public-school system 
was more or less intense. The complete control of the State by 
people who were unsympathetic if not hostile to Southern senti- 
ment accounted in very large measure for the failure of the school 
system to grow and develop as had been promised in 1869.- 

^The public debt of Florida was increased from $524,000 in 1868 to 
$5,620,000 in 1874. 

2 J. C. Gibbs, a colored man, served as state superintendent of schools 
from 1872 to 1874. Gibbs was born in Philadelphia in 1831 and was a 
graduate of Dartmouth. He was a minister in the Presbyterian Church and 
had come South in 1865 as an agent of the Old School Presbyterian As- 
sembly, to organize schools and churches among the freedmen. He came into 



EDUCATION DURING RECONSTRUCTION 359 

The conservatives returned to the control of the State in 1877, 
and the report of the state superintendent the following year 
showed a slight increase in educational sentiment and progress. 
During the year 187 7-1878 a larger percentage of the school 
population had been enrolled and a more creditable average at- 
tendance was repgrted. There was reported also a considerable 
increase in the number of schools sustained, a much longer average 
school term, the employment of better-qualified teachers, and the 
adoption of county uniformity in textbooks. The financial condi- 
tion of many of the counties was improved, yet there was evident 
need of greatly increased funds for school purposes. The schools 
for the colored people were ''sustained in proportion to their 
population, and these people express themselves satisfied that 
justice has been accorded them." 

The school system provided for in Mississippi under the law of 
July 4, 1870, went into operation a few months afterwards under 
the superintendency of Henry R. Pease, a native of Connecticut. 
He had been a captain in the United States Army and later was 
an agent of the Freedmen's Bureau. Pease served as superin- 
tendent until 1873. 

The local administrative officers of the system were appointed 
by military authority until the regular election in November, 1871. 
As a result of such appointment most of these school officers were 
radicals, scalawags, ^groes, or carpetbaggers. Under the law they 
had rather large power, including that of levying local taxes for 
school purposes. And this power led almost immediately to pre- 
tentious and visionary but costly and extravagant schemes for 
educational work in the State. The conservative white people, 
who, in large measure, paid the taxes, were given practically 

Florida in 1867 and became secretary of state under the constitution of 1868, 
serving until 1872, when he became superintendent of the public schools. 
He ^s described as "a dark mulatto, of fine appearance and gentlemanly 
manners,* and is said to have been a man of more than average ability 
and quite highly respected. But the people of Florida were naturally un- 
happy and disconcerted at having a negro to head their schools. 



36o PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

no voice in the direction of the public schools, — a condition which 
developed hostility to public education. The power of raising 
local school funds was placed "in the hands of men who were 
not required to share the burdens which they imposed ; who, in 
many cases, had lived only a short time in the State, and conse- 
quently had little appreciation of the difficulty the Southern 
whites were having in trying to adjust themselves to the new 
economic situation; who often belonged to the less worthy class 
of immigrants, with no experience in the affairs of government, 
and with the selfish exploitation of the country too often as their 
only excuse for being there. The evils bred by this plan of 
organization were legion. Misunderstandings arose where none 
should have existed ; injustice was done when none was intended ; 
lack of sympathy was at first well-nigh universal ; fraud and 
corruption were not infrequent."^ 

Practically half of the total expenditures for schools during the 
first year of the system was "absolutely thrown away," and the 
heavy expenditures were so extravagant that they "staggered 
even the reconstruction leaders." The negro schools were particu- 
larly well cared for during this and the next few years, the expenses 
for this maintenance being abnormally heavy. In one county, 
where the number of colored children was four times larger 
than the number of white children, a large number of well- 
equipped schools were provided and teachers were employed at 
salaries so much larger than the salaries paid the teachers of white 
schools that the comparison was a cause of much dissatisfaction. 

Cases of fraud and corruption in the management of the public- 
school fund were naturally numerous during the period. "All over 
the State the robbery through the school system was especially 
rank," " the manner in which the school boards of some counties 
are swindling the people is enough to drive them mad," are 
contemporary statements which describe with fair exactness some 
of the evils on which the schools had fallen. The result was an 

1 Noble, Forty Years of the Public Schools in Mississippi, pp. 32, 33. 



EDUCATION DURING RECONSTRUCTION 361 

outright opposition to the system, which often expressed itself 
in acts of violence in which school property was destroyed and 
teachers terrorized and driven from the State. 

Disorders natural to the period practically forced Mississippi 
into a state of economic collapse. Between 1870 and 1872 the 
state debt more than doubled, real property decreased in value 
from $118,000,000 in 1870 to $95,000,000 six years later, and 
personal property decreased during the same time from 
$59,000,000 to $35,000,000. All through these years the financial 
system of the State was in a distressing condition, but the recon- 
struction policy of heavy taxes and extravagant expenditures con- 
tinued. Moreover, the permanent school fund suffered a shameful 
loss. Under such conditions public schools had little chance to 
develop and operate with any degree of success. 

In 1873 Thomas W. Cardoza, a negro who was under indictment 
for embezzlement, succeeded Pease as superintendent. Two years 
later, however, the control of the affairs of the State was returned 
to the conservatives, and reconstruction came to a close immedi- 
ately thereafter. Impeachment charges were preferred against 
Cardoza for maladministration and the misappropriation of public- 
school funds, and that officer preferred resignation to trial.^ 

Here, as in some of the other Southern States, the conservative 
reaction to the radical policy of reconstruction led at once to 
practices of rigid economy in public education — practices which 
have too long prevailed in the entire South. Reconstruction left 
Mississippi almost bankrupt economically and pitiably depressed 
and depleted in spirit. It is not surprising, therefore, that it 
along with the other Southern States has lagged behind in public 
educational endeavor. But the conservative leaders set themselves 
heroically to the discouraging task of providing for the children 
of the State better and safer educational advantages, and with 
the return to home rule in the fall of 1875 they sought to make 



^ Other state officers, including Governor Ames, were also impeached at 
this time. 



362 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

such provision through new educational legislation and by other 
means. "The people of Mississippi," declared one of those leaders 
in 1876, "have suffered enough already from ignorance and its 
consequences, blind prejudices in governmental affairs, and they 
\ will not refuse to use any means in their power to remove them." 

The new school system of Arkansas under the reconstruction 
regime was set up in August, 1868, under the superintendency of 
Thomas Smith, whose first report appeared three months later. 
During that and the following year fully half of the entire school 
fund was paid to the ten circuit superintendents. These officers 
were appointed very largely for political purposes and gave most 
of their attention to politics, and their reports showed that they 
were not qualified for their duties. Lack of adequate funds was 
another obstacle in the way of the new schools. 

The school system accomplished very little during the entire 
reconstruction period. The total school population seems to have 
decreased during the first five years of that time, though the 
number of teachers, schoolhouses, and the value of school property 
slightly increased. The enrollment for these years was very 
poor. In 1868 about 39 per cent of the total white school popula- 
tion and about 37 per cent of the total colored school population 
were enrolled. In 1876 less than 9 per cent of the white children 
were attending school, and statistics for the attendance of the 
colored children were not given at all for that year. The total 
public-school revenues decreased from $300,000 in 1868 to about 
$40,000 in 1875. 

Unwise educational legislation and an act of 1869 which made 
the treasurer's certificates of the State receivable for state dues 
and debts discouraged the friends of education and disheartened 
the teachers, many of whom left the State. For these and other 
reasons public educational facilities became very meager, and the 
schools "literally died of starvation." Smith had been succeeded 
in office in January, 1873, by J. C. Corbin, a negro graduate of 
Oberlin College, who had come into Arkansas with the United 
States army and had attained some prominence. His report for 



EDUCATION DURING RECONSTRUCTION 363 

the following year, like practically all the reports on education 
during the reconstruction period, revealed deplorable conditions. 

In April and May, 1874, the State witnessed a heated struggle 
between the conservative element and the reconstruction, or radi- 
cal, element, known as the "Brooks-Baxter War." Reconstruction 
practically came to a close, however, on May 14 of that year, 
when President Grant proclaimed Baxter the legal governor of the 
State and ordered Brooks and his following to disperse. Authority 
then passed into the hands of the conservatives, whose represent- 
atives met in convention in July and formed a new constitution, 
which was submitted to the people in October, 1874, and adopted 
as the organic law of the State. 

The new constitution provided for the education of all the 
children of the State, for making the school funds inviolable, 
for an annual capitation tax and a uniform property tax for 
schools, but left local school taxation optional with the voters. One 
striking evidence of conservative reaction to the rule of reconstruc- 
tion, however, was the constitutional abolition of the office of 
state superintendent of schools — a step taken no doubt because 
Corbin, who was superintendent at that time, was so unfavorable 
to the conservatives. The reestablishment of this office was left 
to legislative action, and by an act of December, 1875, the superin- 
tendency was restored. It had appeared best to the convention 
and "to those in power to let the old system practically die and 
then to build anew on the basis of home rule, honest money, 
conservatism in expenditures, and honesty in administration."^ 

It was many years after the close of reconstruction in Arkansas, 
as in other Southern States, before the school system regained its 
strength and established its proper place in public esteem. But in 
his report for the year ending July i, 1876, Superintendent George 
W. Hill said : 

There is light ahead for our common-school system. This is no 
groundless assertion. It is based upon assurances from all parts of the 

-Weeks, History of Public School Education in Arkansas, p. 60. 



364 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

State of growing intelligence, of an increasing spirit of inquiry, of 
awakened appreciation of education, of lessening hostility to free 
schools, of the waning indifference of the people to the efforts of the 
State in behalf of education, of an enlarging number of friends and 
advocates of common schools, of a more earnest call for teachers of 
higher qualifications, of more agitation of the public mind on the free- 
school question, of a greater disposition on the part of the press to 
speak in advocacy of common schools, and of better county and district 
officers being elected. 

' The new school system established in Tennessee under the act of 
March, 1867, began under the superintendency of John Eaton 
(a native of New Hampshire), who, during the lately closed war, 
had attained the rank of brigadier general in the United States 
army. Eaton served from October of that year to March, 1870, 
but was unable to set the schools properly to work and to organize 
the system in any effective fashion.. The political and social dis- 
order prevailing in the State made the educational legislation of 
1867 very unpopular. And in spite of what seemed to be a fair 
financial provision for schools, it soon became very evident that 
there was a big difference between school funds due and school 
funds available^ 'The use of the school funds for other purposes 
threw distrust on the public educational plan, which was met at 
every point by doubt and opposition. This hostility was aroused 
by the misapplication of the funds by the reconstruction govern- 
ment. The system also lacked vitality ; and it seemed to be the 
opinion of the best men of the State, even of the reconstructionists, 
that "so long as we pay taxes for the express purpose of main- 
taining free schools, and yet, by wrongdoing of state officers, have 
so little return in the shape of schools, the system will be a 
nullity and a sham." As late as 1869 only a few counties had com- 
plied with the law of 1867. Moreover, it was difficult to secure 
suitable men to serve as county superintendents. /In some counties 
as many as seven successive appointments had been made, and too 
often the work of organizing the schools was placed in the hands 
of the ignorant and incompetent. 



EDUCATION DURING RECONSTRUCTION 365 

The conservative candidates for the Legislature were elected in 
August, 1869, and the radical control of the State practically came 
to a close shortly afterwards. This Legislature responded to the 
demand for economy and decentralization in educational admin- 
istration, and the law of 1867 was superseded by an act of Decem- 
ber, 1869, which practically destroyed the state organization of 
schools and turned them over to the authority of the counties. 
The office of state superintendent was abolished, and Eaton was 
given ninety days to close up the educational affairs of the State. 
This reactionary measure "was not inspired by hostility to public 
schools, but was believed to be the best that the temper of the 
public mind and the disordered financial condition of the State 
would then warrant." It was a protest against petty politics and 
the policies of reconstruction. The conservatives honestly believed 
that the schools needed to be relieved of the taint of misrule and 
of radical exploitation before they could win and keep their proper 
place in the confidence of the public. 

In March, 1870, a new constitution was formed and adopted for 
the State, and frequent educational legislation was enacted during 
the next few years. But the practical operation of the schools 
showed but little work that was creditabley In 1873 the office of 
state superintendent was restored and other legislative improve- 
ments made. Public confusion continued, however, and the schools 
made practically no progress. The system was described as wholly 
unsuited for the purposes of education and "totally destitute of 
energy." This condition seems to have continued for several years_». 
The reports that came from a few of the counties were full of dis- 
couragement, and it is highly probable that not more than one 
fifth of the educable children of the State enjoyed public educa- 
tional opportunity during a large part of the years from 1868 to 
1876. In this latter year the State had a school population of 
434,00c, with 194,000 enrolled and only 125,000 in daily attend- 
ance. The schools operated about seventy days in the year, and 
the average monthly salary of the teachers was about S3 2. Im- 
provement in term and salary was later only slowly made. 



366 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

It was not until 1871 that Texas had any kind of an organized 
system of public schools under the new plan of the previous year, 
J. C. DeGress had become state superintendent, and while he re- 
ported promise of a good school system for the State, he also re- 
ported strong opposition and much prejudice shown by occasional 
intimidation of teachers and acts of violence. Difficulty was also 
experienced in selecting local school directors and in the collection 
of the county school taxes. The school law of 1870, which had 
been found to be impracticable, was modified in 1871, but im- 
provement in legislation did not greatly reveal itself in the opera- 
tion of the schools. The condition of the colored schools is 
indicated by such reports as this : 

Schools for colored children have been opened all over the State, 
and are crowded to overflowing with children who evince an eager 
thirst for knowledge that augurs well for the future of the race. The 
problem that agitated the Southern mind a few years ago, of what 
would be the future of the colored people, is settled, for education will 
make them self-reliant, self-supporting, and valuable citizens. They 
enter into the educational work before them with a zest that bespeaks 
their full understanding of its importance. Where it has been impos- 
sible to lease buildings for school-houses, they have offered their 
churches, and in many instances, have clubbed together and put up 
buildings for the purpose. 

The greatest difficulty experienced in giving them the benefits of the 
law has been in procuring teachers for them, few persons having the 
nerve and hardihood to meet the continual insults, the social ostracism, 
the threats of injury, and all the annoyances to which teachers of 
colored schools are subject. Some few teachers have braved all this 
and conquered; but in other cases insult and intimidation have done 
their work, and the schools are closed for want of teachers. In some 
communities teachers of colored schools have been unable to procure 
board or even lodging ; in other instances they have been dragged 
from their houses at night and whipped ; others, going to their school- 
houses in the morning have found them a heap of ashes. 

This state of affairs can be remedied in every community by the 
citizens frowning upon such violations of law, but they will not do it 
till they begin to feel that their interest demands it. . . . 



EDUCATION DURING RECONSTRUCTION 367 

Scarcity of funds and the mismanagement of those available for 
schools led to confusion and actual distress among the teachers 
who were engaged in the system during the early years of its opera- 
tion. In 1873 the Legislature repealed the school law of 1871 
and enacted one which dispensed with the state board of education 
and substituted local control through county organization. Condi- 
tions did not improve by such changes, though the friends of the 
schools were brave in the face of great opposition and during in- 
tense political strife. There was considerable confusion, and the 
work proceeded so poorly and was in such an unsettled condition 
that the Peabody Board did not feel justified in making further 
donations to the State. But the leaders made public appeal for 
efficient, paid county superintendents, trained teachers, prompt 
and liberal payments by the State for school support, improved 
schoolhouses, and a minimum school term of six months. It was 
pointed out that public schools depend for their support on the 
sympathies and cooperation of the people and that such assistance 
could be secured only by making the schools in every way worthy. 
The reconstruction regime practically came to a close in Texas in 
1874, but as late as 1876 school conditions were not reassuring 
there. Two years later, however, signs of improvement appeared, 
and the schools were reported as growing in popular favor, and no 
fears were entertained for the future. 

S. S. Ashley, a minister from Massachusetts, was elected the 
first superintendent of schools for North Carolina under the recon- 
struction plan. He was a man of some ability, but very narrow in 
view and so prejudiced that he was not always cautious in his 
behavior. He was especially interested in mixed schools for the 
State, and this interest served to make him very unpleasant to the 
native conservative population. 

His first report appeared in November, 1868, before the new 
educational legislation had been enacted, and showed that almost 
nothing was being done for public schools. The income for school 
purposes was very meager and in striking contrast to the liberal 
fund for school support before i860. Ashley believed, however, 



368 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

that some schools would be opened in the fall of 1869 and that by 
the beginning of 1870 many communities in the State would be 
supplied with educational facilities. Aid was expected from the 
school taxes, but this source of support proved to be very uncertain 
during the early years of reconstruction. Several outside agencies 
were aiding education in the State, however, during this time. 
Among them were the Baltimore Association of Friends, the Sol- 
diers' Memorial Society of Boston, the American Unitarian Asso- 
ciation, and the Peabody Board. The education of the freedmen 
was receiving attention from the Freedmen's Bureau, the New 
England Freedmen's Relief Association, the New York Freed- 
men's Relief Association, the American Missionary Association, 
the Friends' Freedmen's Aid Association, the Presbyterian General 
Assembly, and other organizations. Through Reverend F. A. 
Fiske, of Massachusetts, an educational campaign for the freedmen 
was carried on by the Freedmen's Bureau, and the Peabody Board 
was aiding several towns to maintain schools and was stimulating 
interest in public education generally .'^ 

Lack of funds, scarcity of teachers, defective legislation, uncer- 
tainty and confusion, partisan strife, and fraud and extravagance 
in the state government promised nothing but failure for the new 
school system, which was meeting obstacles at almost every point. 
Added to these ills was a decision of the supreme court which held 
that the provision of the school law of 1869 for local school taxes 
was unconstitutional and could not be enforced. And with public 
opinion so strongly against the levying of school taxes under the 
radical regime, the entire school system was practically inoperative. 

The legislature which met in the fall of 1870 was largely con- 
servative and concerned itself almost entirely with the impeach- 
ment of Governor Holden. But two acts of educational importance 
were passed. One reduced the salary of the state superintendent 
from $2400 to Si 500, removed the clerical force of that officer, and 
allowed him no funds for traveling expenses ; the other looked to 

iSee Knight, Public School Education in North Carolina, for a fuller 
discussion of the schools in North Carolina during reconstruction. 



EDUCATION DURING RECONSTRUCTION 369 

the better protection of the literary fund. Both acts reflected reac- 
tion to the radical regime, and that reaction continued for many- 
years after the final overthrow of reconstruction. In the fall of 
1 87 1 conservative influence enacted a new school law to take the 
place of that of 1869 and with more liberal provisions for public 
education. Among these provisions was that of a property and a 
special capitation tax for school support. Plans were also pro- 
vided for institutes for the training of teachers, and the report of 
the superintendent for 1872 was much better than that of any 
previous reconstruction reports of the school work of the State.^ 
But conditions were yet far from satisfactory. The principle of 
public taxation for school support was receiving wider acceptance, 
but its application to the needs and conditions of the State was a 
more difficult task. Moreover, the fear of mixed schools and the 
agitation in Congress of the Civil Rights Bill added confusion 
and alarm. 

Between 1873 and 1875 only slight improvement appeared. The 
concluding steps to overthrow the rule of reconstruction were taken 
in the constitutional convention of 1875, however, and in the cam- 
paign which followed the next year the work of the convention 
was of great political and social importance, because many changes 
were made which promised the promotion of better government in 
the State, Among the educational changes of the new constitution 
was the requirement for separate schools for the children of the two 
races, removing finally the fear of the possibility of mixed schools. 

The new constitution went into effect January i, 1877, and two 
significant educational acts were passed by the first legislature 
meeting under it. One act established two normal schools — one 
for each race — and provided for their maintenance. The other 
gave authority to townships of a certain size to levy special taxes 
for public graded schools. Conditions appeared more promising, 
and Dr. Sears of the Peabody Board reported that the tide of 

1 Ashley resigned when the Legislature reduced his salary, and Alexan- 
der Mclver, a professor in the State University, was appointed by the 
governor to fill the vacancy. 



370 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

public opinion had been turned in favor of education and would 
thereafter be difficult to resist. 

In many respects public education in North Carolina during re- 
construction suffers when compared with that of the ante-bellum 
period. Teachers were paid a higher salary in North Carolina 
before the war than during reconstruction or until after 1900. A 
larger percentage of the school population was enrolled in school 
in i860 than at any time during reconstruction. Moreover, the 
reconstruction regime failed to improve the provisions for state, 
county, and local administrative organization and supervision. 
Finally, evidence is strong that had the native conservative element 
of the State been free to act without unwholesome influences from 
the outside a safer and more adequate educational plan than that 
supplied by reconstruction would have been outlined and promoted. 

Superintendent Jillson made his first report on the schools of 
South Carolina before the new school law described in the preced- 
ing chapter had been enacted for that State. He complained that 
the failure of the Legislature to pass a school law at its regular 
session of 1 868-1 869 had kept the department in a state of com- 
parative inactivity for nearly a year, with the result that the chil- 
dren and youth of "this commonwealth are daily growing up in 
ignorance — a state which leads to poverty and crime." The re- 
port, therefore, covered the work accomplished under the act to 
provide for the temporary organization of the educational depart- 
ment of the State, which was passed in September, 1868. 

Many difficulties confronted the new system from the outset. 
Inexperience of school officers, lack of suitable houses, scarcity of 
good teachers, indifference and impatience of the people, insuffi- 
cient school support, the hatred of mixed schools, and defective 
legislation were some of the more stubborn obstacles. In most 
instances the school officers entered upon their duties with little or 
no experience to aid them in their tasks; but few of the school- 
houses were the property of the State, and many of those in use 
were "most miserable affairs, entirely destitute of even the most 
rude and simple comforts and conveniences of a modern school 



EDUCATION DURING RECONSTRUCTION 371 

room." The superintendent urged legislative authority to enable 
local communities to raise funds to remedy the defect. The em- 
ployment of inefficient and incompetent teachers was an evil per- 
haps more keenly felt than any other, and this condition persisted 
throughout the reconstruction period and even later. "Probably 
no State in the union is so cursed with poor teachers as South 
Carolina," said the superintendent. Native white teachers reluc- 
tantly assumed charge of schools, native colored teachers as a 
class were almost wholly incompetent, and it was equally difficult 
to secure teachers from abroad. The evil was believed to be largely 
the fault of the county boards of examiners, who granted certifi- 
cates to persons "whose ignorance was glaringly apparent to the 
most careless observer." Moreover, the small salaries which they 
received and the uncertainty of final payment decreased the num- 
ber of the better class of teachers. The unfulfilled promises of 
the legislature to pay the school appropriations closed many of the 
schools in 1872. Public confidence was betrayed, and teachers 
were unable to obtain their salaries on presentation of their certifi- 
cates to the county treasurers. In many cases the teachers were 
forced to dispose of their certificates at "unreasonable and oppres- 
sive rates of discount to other parties who are doubtless either in 
collusion with or in the interest or employ of, sharks and shavers 
connected directly or indirectly with the county treasury." 

The superintendent complained from time to time of the natural 
apathy and impatience of the people throughout the State. Some 
appeared "sadly indifferent concerning educational matters, not 
caring whether school keeps or not." They also seemed to com- 
plain because the advantages of the system did not immediately 
appear throughout the entire State. Some opposition developed 
because of the cost of maintaining schools. The theory that edu- 
cation is a matter for the individual or the family and not the 
State had well developed in South Carolina before the war, and 
the effect of this philosophy was difficult to overcome. Through- 
out the entire period the schools were in great need of funds. Al- 
though the constitution was clear on the subject of state support, 



372 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

providing for the entire capitation tax to be applied to this pur- 
pose, the poll tax soon appeared to be a very unreliable source of 
school revenue. Moreover, the constitution required the general 
assembly to lay a property tax for schools, but the Legislature was 
slow, and it was not until 1873 that such a tax was levied. 

The reconstruction regime has been credited with extraordinary 
interest in education by reason of so-called legislative appropria- 
tions for schools.^ The general assemblies did appear liberal and 
wise in this matter, but in most of the Southern States, especially 
South Carolina, their appropriations seem not to have been paid 
fully or even in large part.^ 

The presence and influence of the negro in political, educational, 
and social affairs also served to complicate an otherwise anomalous 
condition in the State. Just how far the promoters of the mixed- 
school legislation expected to extend is a matter for conjecture, but 
that it was perhaps the unwisest action of the period is a certainty, 
for it lent itself to a most unfortunate and damaging reaction for 
many years after the return to home rule. The principal objection 
raised to the school system during this time arose from the fear 
and hatred of mixed schools, which were not demanded by either 
race. On the contrary, both races were violently opposed to 
the scheme, and the friends of the schools constantly urged the 
adoption of separate schools. But the agitation in Congress of the 
Civil Rights Bill had the effect of aggravating a prejudice which 
had begun to develop with the state constitutional provision for 
mixed schools. 

The damaging effect of the policy can be seen in the case of the 
university, known before the war as the South Carolina College. 
This institution had a very creditable career and an extensive influ- 
ence from 1 80 1, when it was chartered, until the war, when it was 
severely crippled. After the political conditions began to adjust 
themselves the institution was reopened, but a radical change in 

^One of the largest items in the budgets of reconstruction was for schools. 
— Dunning, Reconstruction Political and Economic, p. 206 

2 See Knight, Reconstruction and Education in South Carolina. 



EDUCATION DURING RECONSTRUCTION 373 

1869 in the personnel of its trustees and the admission of negro 
students so increased distrust and apprehension that most of the 
white students left. In 1873, when the state normal school was 
organized, it was located in one of the university buildings. The 
university professors were required to lecture to the normal stu- 
dents, the majority of whom were negroes, and the university 
library was also to be used by the normal school. Until this time 
the negroes had made but few attempts to avail themselves of the 
privileges of the university, though there were grave apprehensions 
that its usefulness would be jeopardized by the policy of the domi- 
nant party. 

In 1873 Henry E. Hayne, the negro secretary of State, entered 
the school of medicine. Though "neither vindicative nor aggres- 
sive" he had aroused a prejudice among the white people two 
years before in going to a communion table at a mission church. 
This incident created such a sensation that the mission was finally 
suspended. When he registered in the university three members 
of the faculty resigned. In accepting the resignations the trustees 
announced their pleasure that '' a spirit so hostile to the welfare of 
our State . . . will no longer be represented in the university, 
which is the common property of all our citizens without distinc- 
tion of race." Negroes now entered the institution in large num- 
bers, among them the negro treasurer of the State, E. L. Cardozo, 
and other adults. In a short time nearly nine tenths of the stu- 
dents, numbering nearly two hundred, were negroes. In 1877 the 
institution was closed, but it was opened again three years later as 
the College of Agricultural and Mechanical Arts. 

Defects in the school law, which was made hurriedly by legisla- 
tors who had little knowledge of conditions for which they were 
providing, were other obstacles which continued in South Carolina 
throughout the period. Lack of adequate authority for cities, 
towns, and local districts to raise special taxes for educational 
purposes was a crying need of the period. Adequate provision 
for training and certificating teachers was also greatly needed, 
as well as provisions for a more businesslike and safe business 



374 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

administration of the system. Complaints were constantly made 
against the lax methods of handling school finances, — a complaint 
universal in the South during these years. The collection of the 
poll tax was loosely conducted ; frequently only those who had 
taxable property were required to pay it, and failure to pay this 
tax did not disfranchise. 

It should be remembered that during this period the State was 
not under home rule and that there was little chance for native 
white leadership in political or educational effort. Moreover, the 
State was pitiably bankrupt. The Legislature was largely com- 
posed of illiterate negroes, local political puppets, and designing 
demagogues, whose policy was one of stolid opposition to white 
leadership. Flagrant bribery schemes were common, political posi- 
tions were bought and sold as a common commodity, fraud and 
extravagance created enormous debts, constituting a colossal re- 
proach to the State. These abnormal and irregular conditions 
naturally reached the school system and made it ''worse than 
a failure." And it required many years for the schools of the 
State to recover from the setback given them by the rule of 
reconstruction. 

'Under an abundance of legislative authority the board of educa- 
tion of Alabama began to set the new school system in operation 
in that State in the summer and fall of 1868. Dr. N. B. Cloud was 
appointed superintendent of schools. The new system did not 
differ very materially from that of ante-bellum days except in con- 
stitutional declaration that the schools were to be entirely free to 
the children of the State. Two real difficulties, however, imme- 
diately confronted the plan. One was the extreme difficulty of 
securing competent local officers to assist in the administration of 
the laws, and the other was the serious lack of funds with which 
to establish and maintain for a creditable term a sufficient number 
of schools. There was no legislative provision for capitation or 
property taxation for the schools, and they were forced to depend 
on the income from the permanent fund, which was largely a paper 
fund, and on the legislative appropriation of Si 00,000, which was 



EDUCATION DURING RECONSTRUCTION 375 

not always dependable. Moreover, local school officers employed 
teachers and opened schools without knowing the amount of the 
funds available from the State. And the lack of funds led to 
the opening of a large number of schools which "accomplished 
nothing." There were too many children for the teachers and too 
many teachers for the funds available. " The sum total of schools 
and pupils made a large show upon paper," but the schools were 
generally closed "before the pupils had time to learn the alphabet." 

Carelessness and mismanagement were other causes of slow and 
unsatisfactory growth of public schools in the State. A large 
number of incompetent men had been county superintendents in 
1868. They were described as "ignorant, dilatory, or unmindful 
of their plain duties," and as the real reason for the decrease in 
school interests. In 1870 the Legislature, which was conservative, 
had appointed a commission to examine the office and work of the 
state superintendent, and the report showed evidence of careless- 
ness and unsystematic management of the school work. Cloud was 
charged with paying out the school funds "without due regard to 
the interest of the State," but it was shown that this had been done 
with the consent of the attorney general. The governor referred to 
the report as showing "not only an unsatisfactory, but a most 
shameful and reprehensible state of things. The facts set forth by 
the commissioners are surely a stern condemnation of the manage- 
ment of our educational system during the past year." 

From 1870 to 1872 Joseph Hodgson, conservative, was super- 
intendent, and during this period there was a reorganization of the 
board of education. In the winter of 1870 legislation was enacted 
which looked to an improvement in the school conditions. Pro- 
vision was made for the election of county and local district school 
officers so as to make available for their positions some of the best 
men in the State, and attempts were also made to economize in the 
expenses of administration. In a year these expenses were reduced 
nearly 50 per cent. Reforms of the system of accounting were 
likewise undertaken, since it had been found that more than 
$260,000 drawn from the state treasury since 1868 was not 



376 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

accounted for and that more than $210,000 in warrants was still 
unpaid. More than $124,000 for the years from 1868 to 1871 had 
not been certified by the auditor to local school officers, and there 
was at the end of that time a total of more than $940,000 due the 
schools by the treasury, an amount larger than the entire revenue 
of the State. 

The result of the superintendent's critical review of the financial 
condition of the school system led to a controversy between that 
officer and the auditor of the State not altogether unlike the con- 
troversy in Virginia a few years later over a similar condition (see 
pp. 341 ff.). A provision in the Alabama law permitted the county 
superintendents to draw in advance the county's quota of school 
funds, a privilege which led to a dangerous practice of misusing or 
allov/ing such funds to remain idle.^ This provision of the law was 
repealed, however, in January, 187 1. Concerning the custom 
in Alabama the auditor of that State said: 

Sound policy would dictate that no money be drawn from the state 
treasury until earned in the various townships, and when drawn by the 
county superintendents, it should be for direct transmission to the 
teachers by whom it was earned. No county superintendent should be 
allowed to retain thousands of dollars, belonging to the State for the 
use of schools, for a term of months, especially when the treasury 
became embarrassed by such action. 

After the change in administration in 1870 the school system 
began to show slight signs of improvement. By 1872 the term had 
been increased 35 per cent, available school funds had been in- 
creased more than 17 per cent, and the average attendance had 
more than doubled in the two years. An organization of the teach- 
ers of the State was formed, teachers' institutes were developing 
with a degree of success and satisfaction, four normal schools for 
each race were established, the school laws were gradually being 

1 Compare this practice with that allowed in Virginia before the war (see 
pp. 211 ff.). 



EDUCATION DURING RECONSTRUCTION 377 

improved, and public education was beginning slowly to make a 
different and more wholesome appeal to the people. 

Reconstruction had practically ended in Alabama, so far as 
the schools were concerned, in 1870, when the conservatives got 
control. Considerable progress was made, however, during the 
next two years. But in 1872 politics again favored the radicals, 
and Joseph H. Speed, one of them, became the head of the public- 
school system. One of his initial public acts was that of making 
political capital of the argument of his conservative opponents 
by urging retrenchment and severe economy in public education. 
He declared that "every dollar of the public school fund and the 
university fund given the State by the general government has 
either been squandered or lost. * Let us satisfy our tax-burdened 
people that every cent of their money shall be honestly, judi- 
ciously, and economically expended, and that all disbursing school 
officers shall be held to the severest account. ... It has been 
represented that many county superintendents of education are 
in default. . . . Those who have been unfaithful and dishonest 
(if such there be) in applying and using the money raised for 
the education of the poor children of our State should not go 
unpunished." 

By this time it had come to be generally recognized that the 
schools were in desperate financial difficulties and that the State 
had more teachers and more schools than the available funds 
could afford. And in December, 1872, the state board of educa- 
tion, which was still using its wide legislative powers, ordered the 
closing of all schools after January i, 1873, until the local trustees 
were assured by the state superintendent that sufficient funds were 
available for the prompt payment of the teachers. As a result, 
Alabama had practically no public schools from January to Octo- 
ber of 1873 except a few which were supported by local funds. 
Improvement was sought by legislative enactment in April of that 
year and by a memorial to Congress about the same time. But 
both the legislation and the memorial proved insufficient, and it 
was not until the following November that the authorities were 



378 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

frank enough with themselves and the public to face the facts. 
At that time they acknowledged that there was no legislation to 
enforce the provision of the constitution that the school revenues 
"shall be inviolably appropriated to educational purposes and to 
no other purpose whatever." It was further set forth that since 
the organization of the system in 1868 there had been no legisla- 
tive regard for that provision of the constitution, but that each 
year had seen an increasing amount of the school fund diverted 
to the general expenses of the State. This condition had forced 
the schools to close. 

r> During the next few years considerable improvement was no- 
ticed in the operation of the system. Among other things the 
school term reached ninety days for the white and eighty-three 
days for the colored children. In 1874 the conservatives again 
assumed control, and the following year a new constitution was 
adopted to supersede that of 1868. Improvement was sought by 
making provision for more adequate school revenues, by making 
such funds available when needed, by legislation to regulate 
the schools wisely and disburse the funds properly, and by seek- 
ing a better type of county superintendent. Even with these 
attempts at improvement, however, it was difficult for many years 
for the schools to gain properly in strength and influence. The 
unwise behavior of the reconstructionists had here as in other 
Southern States held out false hopes to the people, who were led 
to expect too much from the new school plan that came in 1868. 
The constitution of 1868 had introduced foreign elements and 
ideas, but all changes " tended back toward the ante-bellum norm." 
It seems clear that the Alabama system of public education grew 
out of the actual experiences of the people of that State. In his 
report in November, 1876, which covered the work of the schools 
for the two preceding years, Superintendent John M. McKleroy 
said: 

In that period great improvement and advancement has been made. 
The principle of the power and propriety of a State to maintain a sys- 
tem of free public education has been affirmed in unmistakable terms 



EDUCATION DURING RECONSTRUCTION 379 

by the people of this State, and they have implanted it in the constitu- 
tion made by themselves, and in the same instrument they have made 
liberal provisions for its support, thus guaranteeing its permanency 
and usefulness. 



^■v4 



y July, 1870, the technical part of the reconstruction process 
had been completed, with the enactment of legislation which de- 
clared Georgia entitled to representation in Congress. By that 
time the Southern States which had formed the Confederacy had 
been made over by the formation of new governments and the 
creation of a new political people. Passionate political feelings 
were involved in every step of this process and grave errors were 
committed. Not the least grave of these was the sudden and indis- 
criminate gift of the ballot to men who were entirely unprepared 
for its intelligent use. Even in this policy partisan purposes had 
entered fully. A natural result, as may be seen in this chapter, was a 
serious crippling of schools and a deadening of public interest in 
education, for during the regime of riot and rascality the schools 
fell victim to the vengeance and cupidity of adventurers and 
malefactors. But before the last State was restored to relations 
with the Union the process for undoing reconstruction was well 
under way. By 1876 the first period in the undoing had come to 
an end, and the white people of the South were able to resume 
control of affairs. A second period began shortly afterwards and 
continued for more than two decades, during which time par- 
tisan feelings ran high and coni!icts over the elimination of the 
negro from politics were fierce and demoralizing. The final stage 
of the unhappy reconstruction controversy which followed the 
surrender at Appomattox was destined to close, in a most singular 
manner, in a complete reversal of the policy and process which 
marked its beginning. During those two or more decades of tur- 
moil, confusion, and bitterness the schools were again subordinated 
and often even sacrificed to less worthy interests, and the education 
of both whites and blacks fell pitiably into neglect. And in some 
of the Southern States public educational conditions were less 
wholesome and reassuring in the nineties than in i860. 



38o PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

The cost to the South of those eight years of reconstruction 
(from 1868 to 1876) can never be accurately calculated. But even 
in those values which can be measured it is highly probable 
that reconstruction cost the South more than the war had cost. 
When reconstruction had ended in 1876, the personal property 
that had remained at the close of the war had almost entirely dis- 
appeared at the hands of the reconstructionists. But the people of 
the South bore with remarkable fortitude and courage their sense 
of defeat, as bitter as that had been. Nor did they repine at their 
loss of property, even by the force of arms, or at the disruption of 
their social system or the destruction of their distinctive civiliza- 
tion, of which the rest of the country has never had any accurate 
idea. These were no little burdens to bear, but the people as- 
sumed them bravely and went to work again — many of them with 
spirited energy and courage — to build on the memory of the old a 
new civilization. Between 1876 and the reawakening that began 
to appear near the close of the century, heroic effort was made at 
educational readjustment and development in the South. But the 
task was difficult and discouraging, and only slight educational 
progress was achieved. But the little work that was accomplished 
stands as testimony to the faith of the people, who were unwilling 
to be defeated by the obstacles which the crime of reconstruction 
had left as a heritage for their children. 

Most of the perplexing problems which confront public educa- 
tion in the South today grew out of the mistakes of reconstruction. 
To the consideration of those problems and of the efforts that have 
been made to solve them the remaining chapters will be devoted. 



QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION AND FURTHER STUDY 

1. Why were the elaborate constitutional and legislative provisions 
for public-school support and administration in the Southern States 
during reconstruction insufficient for the safe and adequate develop- 
ment of schools? In what way or ways did such provisions prove to 
be ineffective in your State ? 



EDUCATION DURING RECONSTRUCTION 381 

2. What was the chief weakness of pubhc education in your State 
between 1868 and 1876? What signs of improvement appeared after 
the latter date ? In what way did such signs fail ? 

3. List and trace to their origin the principal causes of the slow 
growth of public education in the South between 1876 and 1900. 

4. Study the influence of the following factors on public education 
in your State during reconstruction : (a) Freedmen's Bureau, (6) Civil 
Rights Bill, (c) prominent place of the freedmen in politics, (d) mis- 
management and diversion of school funds, (e) incompetence of school 
officials, (/) defective legislation, (g) outside educational agencies of a 
private or philanthropic nature. 

5. List the best educational influences at work in your State during 
the period under discussion. 

6. Explain the meaning of "the undoing" of reconstruction. Why 
were public schools involved and subordinated in this process no less 
perhaps than in the process of reconstruction itself? 

7. List the problems of public education in your State today that 
had their beginnings in reconstruction. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Acts of the Legislature of the various States. Appleton, The American 
Annual Cyclopedia for 1868 to 1877. Barnard, The American Journal of 
Education, 30 vols. Hartford, 1855-1881. Circulars of information, United 
States Bureau of Education : Bush, History of Education in Florida (Wash- 
ington, 1889) ; Clark, History of Education in Alabama (Washington, 1889) ; 
Fay, History of Education in Louisiana (Washington, 1898) ; Jones, Educa- 
tion in Georgia (Washington, 1889) ; Lane, History of Education in Texas 
(Washington, 1903) ; Mayes, History of Education in Mississippi (Washing- 
ton, 1899) ; Meriwether, History of Higher Education in South Carolina 
(Washington, 1899) ; Smith, History of Education in North Carolina 
(Washington, 1888). Davis, The Civil War and Reconstruction in Florida. 
New York, 1913. Dunning, Essays on the Civil War and Reconstruction. 
New York, 1897. Dunning, Reconstruction Political and Economic. New 
York, 1907. Eckenrode, The Political History of Virginia during the Re- 
construction. Baltimore, 1904. Ficklen, History of Reconstruction in 
Louisiana through 1868. Baltimore, 1910. Fleming, Civil War and Re- 
construction in Alabama. New York, 1905. Fleming, Documentary History 
of Reconstruction, 2 vols. Cleveland, 1906, 1907. Garner, Reconstruction 
in Mississippi. New York, 1910. Garner (Ed.), Studies in Southern 
History and Politics (inscribed to William A. Dunning). New York, 1914. 



382 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

Hamilton, Reconstruction in North Carolina. New York, 1914. Harrell, 
The Brooks-Baxter War. St. Louis, 1893. Heatwole, History of Educa- 
tion in Virginia. New York, 1916. Hollis, The Early Period of Recon- 
struction in South Carolina. Baltimore, 1905. Howard, Autobiography, 
2 vols. New York, 1907. Journals of the Legislature of the vari- 
ous States. Kendrick, The Journal of the Joint Committee of Fifteen on 
Reconstruction. New York, 1914. Knight, The Influence of Reconstruc- 
tion on Education in the South. New York, 1913. Knight, Public School 
Education in North Carolina. Boston, 1916. Knight, "Reconstruction and 
Education in South Carolina," in the South Atlantic Quarterly for October, 
1919, and January, 1920. Knight, "Reconstruction and Education in Vir- 
ginia," in the South Atlantic Quarterly for January and April, 1916. Knight, 
"Some Fallacies concerning the History of Education in the South," in the 
South Atlantic Quarterly for October, 1914. Noble, Forty Years of the Public 
Schools of Mississippi. New York, 1918. Perry, "The Genesis of Public 
Education in Alabama," in Transactions of the Alabama Historical So- 
ciety, Vol. n, 1 89 7-1 898. Pike, The Prostrate State, or South Carolina 
under Negro Rule. New York, 1874. Poore, The Federal and State Con- 
stitutions, 2 vols. Washington, 1877. Proceedings of the Peabody Board 
Trustees, for 1867 to 1877. Cambridge; annual after 1867. Public Docu- 
ments of the various States (including reports of the various state officers, 
messages of the governors, and accompanying papers) . Ramage, Local Gov- 
ernment and Free Schools in South Carolina. Baltimore, 1883. Ramsdell, 
Reconstruction in Texas. New York, 1910. Reports of the superintendent of 
public instruction of the various States. Reynolds, Reconstruction in South 
Carolina. Columbia, 1905. Thompson, Reconstruction in Georgia. New 
York, 1915. Thorpe, Federal and State Constitutions, 7 vols. Washington, 
1909. Wallace, Carpetbag Rule in Florida. Jacksonville, 1888. Weeks, 
"Calvin Henderson Wiley and the Organization of the Common Schools of 
North Carolina," in Report of the United States Commissioner of Educa- 
tion for 1896-1897, Vol. II. Weeks, History of Public School Education 
in Arkansas. Washington, 1912. Weeks, History of Public School Educa- 
tion in Tennessee (examined in manuscript) . Weeks, Public School Education 
in Alabama. Washington, 1915. 



CHAPTER XI 
PEABODY FUND AND RISE OF CITY SCHOOLS 

Outline of the chapter, i. The Peabody Fund was a highly bene- 
ficial influence to education in the South. Its primary object was to 
promote common-school education. 

2. The fund was to be distributed on certain sound principles which 
were adhered to throughout its operation. "Free schools for the 
whole people" was its motto. 

3. The beneficiary States were the members of the Confederacy 
and West Virginia. 

4. Work in Alabama began early and was productive of wholesome 
results. At first difficulties were met in Arkansas, which was in a 
"state of complete anarchy," but improvement finally appeared. 

5. Conditions were discouraging in Florida, but by 1878 prog- 
ress began to appear. That State was denied the benefits of the fund 
between 1885 and 1893. Georgia early participated in the appropria- 
tions from the fund, which strengthened interest in that State. 

6. Conditions made it difficult for the fund to operate very satis- 
factorily in Louisiana before 1876. Similar conditions operated against 
the work in Mississippi until the same time. That State was omitted 
from the list of beneficiary States between 1885 and 1893. 

7. North Carolina was among the first and the largest beneficiaries 
of the fund. South Carolina's share in the bounty was comparatively 
small, though considerable good was accomplished by it. 

8. The work of the fund was very successful in Tennessee. Texas 
received the smallest share before 1876. After that date appropriations 
increased. 

9. Virginia shared more bountifully in the fund than any of the 
States. 

10. The influence of the fund was wide and definite as a service for 
promoting town and city school systems and advancing educational 
interests generally. 

383 



384 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

During the discouraging years which followed the war a highly 
beneficial and encouraging educational influence came to the South 
through the work of the Peabody Fund, which was created in 1867, 
George Peabody, the donor of the fund, was especially interested 
in public education and created the fund for the purpose of en- 
couraging and promoting schools in " those portions of our beloved 
and common country which have suffered from the destructive 
ravages, and not less disastrous consequences, of civil war." In 
his letter to the sixteen trustees whom he named to manage and 
direct the work of the fund Mr. Peabody said : 

I feel most deeply, therefore, that it is the duty and privilege of the 
most favored and wealthy portions of our nation to assist those who 
are less fortunate ; and with the wish to discharge, so far as I am 
able, my own responsibility in this matter, as well as to gratify my 
desire to aid those to whom I am bound by so many ties of attach- 
ment and regard, I give to you, gentlemen, most of whom have been 
my personal and especial friends, the sum of one million of dollars, 
to be by you and your successors held in trust and the income thereof 
used and applied in your discretion for the promotion and encourage- 
ment of intellectual, moral, or industrial education among the young 
of the more destitute portions of the Southern and Southwestern States 
of our Union ; my purpose being that the benefits intended shall be 
distributed among the entire population, without other distinction 
than their needs and the opportunities of usefulness to them. 

The leading object of the trustees, as set forth in their original 
plan, was the promotion of ^primary or common-school education, 
through agencies then in existence or that might be created in the 
South. The other chief object was the furtherance of normal- 
school work for the professional preparation of teachers, by pro- 
viding scholarships in Southern institutions and by giving aid to 
normal schools. The Reverend Barnas Sears, president of Brown 
University, was named as general agent of the fund, and to the 
delicate and difficult duties of the position he brought rare train- 
ing and experience and great resourcefulness and adaptability. 
He took up his residence at Staunton, Virginia, in 1867 and for 



THE PEABODY FUND 385 

thirteen years rendered the South a high order of genuine educa- 
tional service. 

The directions of Mr. Peabody were that the principal of the 
fund should remain intact for thirty years. It could not be ex- 
pended, neither could it be increased by accruing interest ; but the 
method of using the annual revenue, as well as the final disposi- 
tion of the original endowment, was left entirely to the discretion 
of the trustees. The immediate need was obviously in the field of 
elementary instruction for the masses of Southern youth, and the 
trustees early determined to give assistance to public free schools. 
Their policy was to cooperate with state authorities so as to pre- 
vent disorder and to secure unity and strength of action. The 
funds were not to be distributed as a charity to the indigent. This 
had been a more or less prevalent ante-bellum educational practice 
in several of the Southern States and had proved inadequate to any 
effectual relief, wasteful, and productive of no valuable results. 
Moreover, the funds were not to be appropriated according to 
population or comparative community destitution but on the sound 
principle of helping those communities which would help them- 
selves. The invariable adherence of the trustees to this principle 
was probably the greatest single educational blessing the South 
ever enjoyed. The purpose was to stimulate and encourage local 
initiative and community effort. 

In addition to confining its attention to public free schools the 
fund was thoroughly committed to the following principles in pro- 
moting educational endeavor : rendering aid to schools where large 
numbers of children could be gathered and where a model system 
of schools could be organized and maintained ; giving preference to 
those places which showed promise of influencing the surrounding 
community ; making a limited number of schools effective rather 
than undertaking the "multiplication of schools languishing for 
want of sufficient support"; working for an improvement of state 
systems of education, — "to act through their organs and to make 
use of their machinery whenever" such agencies were offered; 
favoring the establishment and maintenance of normal schools over 



386 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

normal departments in colleges and academies ; giving special at- 
tention to the preparation of female teachers for primary schools, 
"rather than to general culture of young men in colleges, who will 
be likely to teach in the higher schools for the benefit of the few " ; 
encouraging colored students who were preparing to teach to at- 
tend regular normal schools ; favoring the support of state super- 
vision, the formulation of state teachers' associations, and the 
publication of educational periodicals. 

The policy of the fund and its administration was thus outlined. 
["Free schools for the whole people" became its motto and aim. J 
And the conditions on which every appropriation was to be made 
were precisely those needed to secure cooperation with and security 
for the plan. No other method could have created or assisted in 
creating a wholesome educational sentiment or could have had the 
effect of encouraging local taxation for public schools. The 
absence of any element of charity in the plan of distribution, as a 
means to temporary relief, illustrates the sound judgment which 
marked the entire administration of the trust. 

The States aided by the fund were West Virginia and the mem- 
bers of the Confederacy, all of which participated liberally in the 
distribution of the bounty. During the first ten years of the opera- 
tion of the fund nearly a million dollars was distributed by it to 
aid public-school education in the South. In addition to appro- 
priations of money thousands of textbooks were also distributed 
to schools in the Southern States. 

Dr. Sears began his work by visiting the various States, con- 
ferring with the authorities, and offering aid to those communities 
which showed interest in the development of a system of free pub- 
lic schools. Systematic and detailed reports were regularly made 
to the trustees of the general agent's work, and these became for 
nearly thirty years one of the most reliable and satisfactory 
sources of information concerning public education in the South. 

Alabama was one of the first States visited, and there Sears 
found that on account of the sparsity of population and the absence 
of large towns there was need for stimulation and assistance. 



THE PEABODY FUND 387 

Aid was offered to Mobile, IVIontgomery, Talladega, Marion, 
Uniontown, Tuscaloosa, and Columbus, and in all these places 
creditable interest in education appeared. It was in Mobile that 
the ante-bellum school system in Alabama had had its beginning. 
Experiments had been made there as early as 1826, and these con- 
tinued until 1852, when a fairly creditable system was set in opera- 
tion and continued throughout the war. It was forced to suspend 
in the spring of 1865, however, though the schools were soon reor- 
ganized. In 1868 the town was maintaining a school system at an 
annual expense of $25,000, but the impoverished condition of the 
treasury had forced resort to a rate bill for school support. In 
Montgomery there were no free schools in 1868, and a majority 
of the children .were "educated only in the streets." These and 
other towns complied with the conditions of the Peabody Trustees 
and soon began to operate creditable schools. 

The new constitution of the State was ratified in 1868. But the 
first school law enacted under the reconstruction regime was so 
repugnant to the sentiments of the people that it could not be 
enforced. It met with considerable opposition, and different politi- 
cal views proved a serious hindrance to its introduction. In conse- 
quence of such discouraging circumstances the scale of the 
Peabody operations was not greatly enlarged for several years after 
1868. In some of the towns, however, litigation over the jurisdic- 
tion of state and local officers soon succeeded in nullifying previous 
agreements made with the Peabody Board. Moreover, conflicts 
between educational legislation of the State and the rules and 
regulations of the state board of education proved very detrimental 
to the general school interests of the State. The state board, by 
act of August II, 1868, declared vacant all the offices of county 
superintendents, district trustees, and school commissioners. Later 
the board exercised its authority by repealing all school legisla- 
tion passed before July i, 1868, which in any way conflicted with 
its own rules and regulations. The general assembly, jealous of 
its authority and in retaliation, consistently opposed the measures 
of the state board and often repealed the acts of the latter. 



388 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

These conditions were not the only obstacles facing the schools. 
Here as elsewhere in the South school funds were often used for 
other purposes, and as late as March, 1872, only two counties and 
two cities in Alabama had levied local taxes for school purposes. 
The people appeared hostile to local taxation, and in order to 
supplement the school funds, which were small and uncertain, it 
was necessary to resort to voluntary contributions. 

But the Peabody Board continued to render assistance whenever 
possible. In 1873 the schools in Mobile reported some progress, 
and the schools in other communities were also improving ; re- 
stricted and crippled resources were the chief difficulties in the 
way of greater success. Except in the towns and cities, how- 
ever, the year seems to have been one of educational inactivity, 
and many schools were closed by act of the board of education on 
account of the depleted condition of the state treasury. But the 
financial embarrassment from which the schools were suffering was 
somewhat relieved shortly afterwards, and free schools were gener- 
ally maintained. Further improvement appeared in 1875. Public 
schools for each race were maintained in practically all the dis- 
tricts of the State and were reported more popular than ever 
before. In the country the school term was nearly five months 
and in the towns almost eight months. 

The conservatives regained control of the state government in 
1875, and a new constitution went into operation in December of 
that year. The reaction was not so wholesome as could have been 
desired, but improvement soon began to appear. More attention 
was given to the training of teachers, and an interest in graded- 
school systems grew stronger. The state superintendent com- 
mented on the value of assistance from the Peabody Fund and its 
promotion of education in the larger towns, and recommended that 
future appropriations from that source be made to such of the 
smaller towns and communities ''as will take hold of the -matter 
in earnest, and will assist the State in building up such schools." 
During the first ten years of the operation of the fund Alabama re- 
ceived about $55,000 to assist schools for the children of both races. 



THE PEABODY FUND 389 

Sears was disappointed with the conditions in Arkansas on his 
first visit to that State in 1868. "I scarcely need to remark," he 
said in his report, "that Arkansas is in a state of complete 
anarchy : that in the present excited state of feeling, lawlessness 
and violence are liable to break out at any moment, rendering life 
and property alike insecure. Had I been suddenly dropped into 
the midst of the feudal disorder and turbulence of the tenth cen- 
tury, I should hardly have been more struck with the novelty and 
strangeness of the scene." He reported, however, that some of 
the people looked upon education "as foremost among the means 
indispensable to improvement." Two years later conditions showed 
some change. Schools were found in almost every county, and 
several of the larger towns were organizing school systems which 
were being aided and stimulated by the Peabody Board. 

But a retrograde movement set in in 1872. By the act of 1868, 
which made the treasurer's certificates receivable for taxes and 
other debts due the State, teachers had been forced to accept their 
salaries in depreciated paper which ranged in discount from 25 
to 50 per cent. The warmest friends of the schools soon had be- 
come greatly discouraged, and many of the teachers had left the 
State or had gone into other work. In 187 1 the Legislature passed 
a law limiting the amount of local optional taxes for school pur- 
poses to one half of i per cent in rural communities and to three 
fourths of I per cent in towns and cities. Under these provisions 
not more than one in ten of the school districts throughout the 
State was able to support a school for a term of three months 
during the year. 

Conditions went from bad to worse until May, 1874, when 
President Grant recognized Elisha Baxter as the legal governor of 
the State and ordered Brooks (Baxter's rival) and his followers to 
disperse.^ A constitutional convention assembled in August of 
that year, and the constitution which it made was adopted by the 

^The struggle between the two men, who represented the radical and the 
conservative forces of the State, is known as the "Brooks-Baxter War." 
Baxter was the conservative leader. 



390 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

people the following October. In December, 1875, ^ new and im- 
proved school law was enacted under which the conservatives 
began their educational work. Sears regarded this as very favor- 
able legislation and saw signs of renewed interest in education. 
Communities which had abandoned their public schools during the 
reconstruction period now began to reestablish them on a firmer 
basis, and the entire state system appeared to be "administered 
with great energy and to meet with popular sympathy." The 
number of schools which were able to comply with the require- 
ments of the Peabody Board and which applied for aid from that 
source greatly increased, and the number of towns which were 
providing liberally for their schools was annually increasing. The 
Peabody Board also greatly assisted in stimulating interest in local 
taxation for schools and in arousing towns and cities to the impor- 
tance of building school systems for all their children. Batesville, 
Camden, Fayetteville, Helena, Hot Springs, Little Rock, Spring- 
dale, Van Buren, and Washington were among the communities 
aided by the fund during the early years of its operation. Assist- 
ance was also given to normal schools, teachers' institutes, and the 
educational journal of the State. Between 1868 and 1877 the 
appropriations to the State were about $60,000. 

No schools were found in the rural sections of Florida in 1868. 
In the larger towns many families were contemplating sending 
their children to other sections of the country or moving elsewhere 
for better educational advantages. Wherever such conditions were 
found the general agent showed the people how money spent by a 
few families in such a way would support a good school for the 
children of the entire town. He made offers to Jacksonville, Talla- 
hassee, St. Augustine, and other towns, and most of these com- 
munities soon met the requirements of the appropriations. / 

The school system established by the Legislature was feeble and 
greatly crippled because the funds for its support were inade- 
quate. The state tax was not sufficient to maintain schools for 
two or three months a year, and the county tax was variable and 
uncertain. In many towns the schools were maintained by means 



THE PEABODY FUND 391 

of private enterprise. Many of the Peabody appropriations were 
offered on the condition that private schools be converted into 
public free schools, and by 1871 many schools of private character 
were merged into public schools and made free to all the children 
of the community, and schools for both the white and the colored 
children were in this way provided. But the Legislature limited 
the amount of county school taxes, and the interest on the school 
fund was not being paid in currency but in paper worth only thirty- 
three cents on the dollar. Moreover, there were irregularities in 
many counties in the assessment and collection of the school taxes. 
The school population numbered about sixty-seven thousand, but 
only one fourth of it was enrolled in schools, and these continued 
for only a short term. However, aid from the Peabody Trustees 
did much "towards eradicating the prejudice formerly existing in 
the minds of many of the better classes against the system of 
free schools, and of some of the largest tax payers against the 
gratuitous education of all classes." But circumstances unfavor- 
able to education continued for several years. The imperfect col- 
lection of revenue, the inadequacy of legislative appropriations, 
political conflicts, frequent changes in school officials, the incom- 
petency of teachers, and the sparsity of population were among 
the obstacles which the schools encountered. Slight improvement 
began to appear, however, by 1878. 

Florida was omitted from the benefits of the fund between 1885 
and 1893. A part of the endowment consisted of certain Florida 
bonds which the State had refused to pay, and the matter of settle- 
ment became so vexatious that in 1885 the general agent was in- 
structed to exclude it as a beneficiary of the fund. Eight years 
later, however, Florida was permitted to participate again in the 
appropriations. For similar reasons the same action was taken in 
the case of Mississippi. 

Georgia participated very largely in the benefits of the fund in 
1868 as a result of visits Sears had made the year before to numer- 
ous towns in the State. Atlanta, Macon, Augusta, Rome, Savan- 
nah, and Columbus were among the towns which met the 



392 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

conditions of the fund and received assistance promptly. Sears 
also attended a meeting of the state teachers' association in Macon 
and later conferred with a committee appointed by that body to 
plan a school system for the State. In 1870 a uniform system of 
schools was introduced, but the law proved to be defective, and 
the members of the Legislature were reported as " much behind the 
general sentiment of the people on education." There was a serious 
lack of funds available for the schools because large amounts had 
been diverted from the original purpose. These reached nearly 
half a million dollars by the fall of 187 1, and the following year 
the superintendent notified the counties not to expect any aid from 
the State for school purposes. As a result no public schools were 
maintained under the general school law of the State in 1872. 
A year later it was stated that the effort to establish a public- 
school system in Georgia "had resulted in comparative failure." 
Maladministration rather than the inherent weaknesses of the 
plan accounted for this failure. 

In the towns and larger communities progress was being made 
by assistance from the Peabody Fund, and creditable school plans 
were in operation in many of them. Conditions were not alto- 
gether favorable in Atlanta, however, because the people objected 
to the local taxation necessary to provide schools for all the 
people. Private schools were therefore numerous, and sixty such 
schools, all charging high tuition rates, were reported in one year. 
The slowness of inaugurating the system previously planned for 
the city was due to the fear that the city charter did not allow the 
local tax. But legislative authority for this tax was later obtained, 
and a system of schools was soon put into operation with an ex- 
perienced and progressive superintendent, seven large elementary 
schools (two of which were for colored children), two high schools, 
and fifty teachers. 

In this and other towns of the State liberal efforts were made to 
educate the colored children. In some places there was no differ- 
ence between the salaries of the white teachers and those of the 
colored teachers, and the colored schools were usually reported in 



THE PEABODY FUND 393 

good condition. They operated on the same basis, were controlled 
by the same rules, and were taught the same length of time as the 
white schools. Most of the towns also provided normal training 
for all their teachers, being aided in such work by appropriations 
from the Peabody Board. 

Most of the larger towns thus aided were soon able to main- 
tain schools without much state assistance. But this was not the 
general condition throughout the State. As late as 1874 Sears said : 

The State itself is somewhat feeble and faltering in its action. 
Whether it distrusts the principle incorporated in its laws, of educat- 
ing the people at public expense, or is indifferent to the educational 
condition of the lower classes, the effect is the same, a deplorable state 
of popular ignorance. 

Thirty-five per cent of the population over ten years of age was 
said to be unable to read and write. At the same time the agita- 
tion of the Civil Rights Bill in Congress had the effect of checking 
the growth of a favorable public opinion. 

By 1875 the necessity for schools was being more widely felt 
and, although the State was not making the progress expected of 
it, extreme caution was beginning to yield to better counsels, and 
there was improvement in sight. A year later a decided advance in 
sentiment for public schools was noticeable. Many who were 
opposed to the system were becoming friendly ; many others who 
entertained grave doubts as to the policy of the system settled 
down into the conviction that it was the part of wisdom to give it 
a fair trial ; others who were hostile opposed with much less bitter- 
ness ; while the original friends of the cause were becoming every 
day strengthened in their favorable opinion and more earnest in 
its advocacy. 

Louisiana probably suffered more from the evils of reconstruc- 
tion than any other Southern State. Turmoil and confusion in 
political matters as well as morbid and unnatural educational con- 
ditions were some of the difficulties facing the schools. Education 
also suffered from the unwise constitutional legislative provisions 



394 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

for mixed schools, from fraud and extravagance, and from vicious 
legislative whims. The constitution of 1868 provided that no 
separate school or institution of learning should be established 
in the State, and the same instrument prevented any municipal 
corporation from making any " rules or regulations contrary to the 
spirit and intention" of this mandate. The first school law was 
accordingly in strict conformity to the constitution, but the inex- 
pediency and folly of such action were early and fully demon- 
strated by subsequent events in the State. Like the other Southern 
States Louisiana also suffered from an exploitation and fraudulent 
use of its school finances. In 1878 a legislative investigation 
showed that funds amounting to $2,137,000 were misapplied dur- 
ing reconstruction, the responsibility of which attached to the 
various Legislatures and to the state officers, including the superin- 
tendent of schools and other local school officers. The same in- 
vestigation gave as another potent reason for the abnormal school 
system of the State " the constant clinic treatment to which it has 
been subjected for eight years in the Legislative hospital." 

On account of these conditions the Peabody Board was unable 
to cooperate with the state authorities until after the undoing of 
reconstruction. There was great excitement on the subject of 
mixed schools and uncertainty about future legislation. The white 
people were impoverished and disheartened and were being taxed 
for schools to which they were unwilling to send their children. 
For these reasons it was unsatisfactory to make arrangements with 
the state authorities, and it was regarded as undesirable to assist a 
class of schools not under the control of the State. The Board, 
therefore, began its work in Louisiana by giving attention to the 
training of future teachers. Practically all appropriations were 
made to support normal students in the Plaquemine Academy, in 
the New Orleans Normal School, and in other similar institutions. 
In a short time, however, plans were made to aid elementary 
schools for white children in several towns, through H. M. Lusher, 
a former state superintendent of Louisiana, who gave his services 
gratuitously to the Board. He usually appointed the trustees of 



THE PEABODY FUND 395 

the schools receiving Peabody appropriations and recommended for 
aid those communities which supplemented such appropriations by 
local contributions. All such appropriations were' administered for 
the exclusive benefit of white children, and against this apparent 
inequality of distribution Superintendent Thomas W, Conway 
appealed to Mr. Sears, who answered as follows : 

I should be most happy to cooperate with the state authorities. But 
I understand that the state public schools are so organized that the 
greater part of the white population are unwilling to send their children 
to them, and that consequently, the benefit of the public money goes 
in fact chiefly to the colored children. If there is any feasible way of 
removing this inequality, bringing the white people generally into 
cooperation with you, the necessity for a local agency would cease, and 
we could act in concert with you. 

We ourselves raise no question about mixed schools. We simply 
take the fact that the white children do not generally attend them 
without passing any judgment on the propriety or the impropriety of 
their course. We wish to promote universal education — to aid whole 
communities, if possible. If that cannot be, on account of peculiar 
circumstances, we must give the preference to those whose education 
is neglected. It is well known that we are helping the white children 
in Louisiana as being the more destitute, from the fact of their unwill- 
ingness to attend mixed schools. We should give the preference to 
colored children were they in like circumstances. 

For many years the Board continued to act on the plan pursued 
when its work first began in the State and to use Mr. Lusher's 
voluntary services as local agent. As late as 1874 conditions had 
not changed appreciably, and the white people of the State were 
not taking any interest in the schools beyond paying their taxes. 
In New Orleans the Catholic schools were crowded with applicants 
from Protestant families, and private schools of all classes were 
greatly multiplied. In the country parishes only a few children 
were attending any school. 

Dr. Sears feared that the work which his Board had done and 
was doing in the State was accomplishing but little good. The 
schools which had been aided were educating many children, but 



396 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

instead of becoming stronger and giving promise of permanency 
they appeared to be declining. Finally, however, the general agent 
was able to say in 1877 : 

The period for which we have been anxiously waiting has at length 
arrived. A new system of public instruction more conformable to the 
feelings and habits of the people is already introduced. Our local 
agent has been re-elected state superintendent. The present prospect 
is that all classes of the people will unite in the work of education, and 
that there will be a pressing call on the Peabody Fund for assistance. 

This proved to be a correct prediction, for during the next 
several years considerable aid was given the schools of the State. 
After 1877 the annual appropriations were considerably larger 
than before that time, and there were signs of growing sentiment 
in favor of schools. 

When the general agent visited Mississippi soon after the work 
of the Peabody Board was begun, he found conditions there very 
similar to those in other Southern States, though the towns and 
cities showed more than ordinary interest in the work of the fund, 
and many communities were early aided by it. In some of these 
a wholesome educational sentiment was evident, in others the peo- 
ple were at first more or less indifferent on the subject of free 
public schools, and in others still they were "wedded to their 
private schools." Vicksburg all along seems to have maintained 
fairly adequate schools, with provisions for the children of both 
races ; Natchez seems to have had a competent school board, ex- 
cellent teachers, and large and commodious buildings and was at- 
tracting wide attention in the State. The school at Summit, which 
received aid during Dr. Sears's first visit, continued to prosper and 
exerted a powerful influence on the surrounding country. These 
are some instances reported by the general agent during the early 
years of his work in the State. 

As noted in the preceding chapter, the public-school system was 
grafted on Mississippi after the Civil War, under new and un- 
paralleled circumstances, by those who were not regarded by a 



THE PEABODY FUND 397 

large part of its citizenship as fully identified with the best inter- 
ests of the State. Confused political conditions and other evils of 
the period greatly hindered the development of proper educational 
sentiment and for many years retarded satisfactory educational 
growth. Much of the school money was paid during reconstruc- 
tion in depreciated state and county warrants, and there was not 
ample means for school support. But the work of the Peabody 
Board was very effective, and by 1874 there appeared a promising 
interest in the question of public free schools for all the children 
of the State. Private schools were on the decrease, the number of 
towns supplementing the Peabody appropriations was increasing, 
and the friends of education were encouraged. In 1875 it was 
stated that the "taxes were cheerfully and promptly paid" and 
that attendance had increased as much as 20 per cent. 

In 1876 Dr. Sears referred to the resignation of the state super- 
intendent — against whom severe charges had been preferred — 
and stated that it had been necessary to explain anew the working 
of the Board to the new superintendent. The usual reaction also 
set in. The Legislature reduced the teachers' salaries, saying that 
they "should share with others the inconveniences of a depleted 
treasury." The feeling was general throughout reconstruction, 
however, that the school system needed to be revised and elevated, 
but it was not until the return to home rule that the friends of 
education saw some hope of improvement. In 1876 an adminis- 
tration of reform began, and the grounds of opposition to the 
schools were gradually removed ; and two years later it was said 
that the great mass of the people of the State, without distinction 
of race or party, "are found the fast friends and supporters of the 
free-school system." 

Mississippi continued to share in the benefits of the fund until 
1885, when it was omitted from its distribution until 1893. This 
action the Board felt constrained to take "not as a punitory 
measure, but simply as a matter of justice to the children of other 
States, not to allow Mississippi to profit by her own wrong." The 
State had, by constitutional amendment, prohibited the redemption 



398 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

or payment of certain bonds, amounting to about Si, 100,000, 
which were a part of the fund held by the Peabody T^rustees. The 
State had paid the interest on these bonds until 1840; after that 
time only about $100,000 was paid, and this was forced by 
mandamus proceedings. Various acts of the Legislature and the 
Supreme Court had confirmed the validity of the bonds. And when 
the fund was created Mr. Peabody believed " that at an early day 
such legislation will be had as to make these bonds available in 
increasing the usefulness of the present trust." He also believed 
that "Mississippi, though now depressed, is rich in agricultural 
resources, and cannot long disregard the moral obligation resting 
upon her to make provision for their payment." 

In 187 1 the Trustees memorialized the Legislature of the State 
to take proper action for redeeming the bonds, but they got no 
settlement. Ten years later they renewed the memorial without 
success. Meanthne the constitution of the State was so amended 
as to exclude from legislative consideration the entire matter of 
settling the claims, and in 1882 Judge Thomas C. Manning — a 
Louisiana representative of the Trustees — went to Jackson and 
appealed to the Legislature, reminding that body that Mississippi 
had received nearly $70,000 from the income of the Peabody Fund, 
while that endowment had received no income from the Mississippi 
bonds which it held. But the appeal was without effect, and after 
waiting for some time the Trustees in 1884 omitted the State from 
the distribution of the benefaction and continued to exclude it as a 
beneficiary until 1893, when it was reinstated. At the same time 
similar action applied to Florida, though the exclusion of these 
States as beneficiaries never had unanimous approval of the 
Peabody Trustees. 

North Carolina was one of the first States to participate in the 
distribution of the income from this endowment. Acting on the 
advice of Calvin H. Wiley, former state superintendent of schools, 
Dr. Sears visited only the larger towns in 1868, where arrange- 
ments were more easily made for complying with the conditions 
of the fund. Applications for aid came from numerous private 



THE PEABODY FUND 399 

academies, but these could not be considered. During that year 
the popular mind was greatly agitated over the ratification of the 
constitution, and the time was hardly opportune for the Board to 
do effective educational work. By April of the following year, 
however, a new school law was passed, and the Board was able 
to act as a stimulant in inducing towns and cities to establish 
schools. The new school system struggled through its first year 
with as much success as could have been expected in times of bitter 
party strife. Moreover, taxes were imperfectly collected, and the 
schools were therefore poorly supported. There was also a lack 
of educational interest, of competent teachers, and of competent 
officials. 

In 1 87 1 many discouraging conditions appeared in the State, 
where the public mind was not so well settled as in some other 
Southern States. The supreme court had decided that the school 
law, so far as it provided for local taxes, was unconstitutional and 
could not be enforced, and the Legislature had levied no school 
taxes for that year. Moreover, the county commissioners were 
using the capitation taxes for other than educational purposes. 
The principle of general education by public support had been 
agreed upon as the correct principle, but its application was 
proving a more difficult task. Educational legislation, though ap- 
parently well intended, had been hurriedly framed by lawmakers 
of little experience ; local tax legislation was vague and uncertain 
and litigation was often resorted to by those who opposed it ; and 
officials had but little interest in the schools, many of which lan- 
guished for want of proper administration and supervision. But 
Dr. Sears continued his work with discretion and caution. 

In 1873 conditions were still confusing, and indifference among 
the common people and a lack of cooperation among public men 
were everywhere noticeable. "Nowhere," said the general agent, 
"has it been more clearly demonstrated that half-measures in 
establishing and supporting public schools cannot be attended with 
great success." It was feared that in many if not in most of the 
counties no schools would open that year, and systematic and 



400 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

energetic efforts seemed urgent to demand of the Legislature a 
working system of schools. The popular mind was also confused 
by the agitation in Congress of the Civil Rights Bill. Only in the 
cities and towns — and largely in those which were aided by the 
Peabody Board — were any serious efforts being made to main- 
tain schools during those stormy days. The school law was very 
defective in that it failed to provide for the training of teachers 
and for county supervision and local taxation. In 1874 the 
superintendent said: 

The people are not deficient in energy or public spirit, or in due 
appreciation of popular education. Our great want is statesmen in our 
legislative halls — laws that will permit the people to establish and 
maintain public schools for the education of their children. The want 
of active county superintendents has been greatly felt in administer- 
ing the Peabody education fund. 

In 1876 the state superintendent, who had been acting as the 
local agent of the Peabody Board, was charged with irregularities 
in the handling of appropriations made to the State, and a suc- 
cessor was tardily named in his place. This unfortunate circum- 
stance greatly damaged the cause of schools. At this time the 
state tax for schools was slight, a local tax was hardly known, and 
the policy of appointing politicians to head the school system had 
revealed its weakness and danger. Offices had been needlessly 
created and unwisely distributed, and the school system was 
burdened with supernumeraries, responsibilities were divided, and 
chances of active official cooperation were greatly decreased. The 
unwarranted outside interference in educational matters, which 
was viewed with so much apprehension, also added difficulties. 
But the work of Dr. Sears and his Board, and the sight of success 
in the schools aided from that source, helped to keep alive a certain 
educational spirit, and appropriations continued to be made. 

With the return to "home rule" in North Carolina, in 1876, and 
the adoption of a new constitution, conditions began to show some 
change. The liability of having mixed schools, which had been a 



THE PEABODY FUND 401 

matter of much consideration to the people of the State, was now 
removed. Dr. Sears seemed much encouraged and said: "Public 
schools are now fairly put upon their own merits. There can 
henceforth be little question of their perpetuity, for the tide of 
public opinion has been recently turned and set so strong in their 
favor that it will not be easy to resist it." 

One of the evidences of the change here predicted was the 
establishment of two normal schools (one for each race) for the 
training of teachers for the public schools of the State. A great 
need of reconstruction was for competent teachers, and the only 
safe method of providing them was through state establishment 
and support of normal schools. The Legislature of 1877, which 
established these schools, appropriated $2000 for the support of 
each, and this appropriation was continued until other and better 
arrangements were made for teacher-training. The same Legisla- 
ture granted authority to towns of a certain size to levy an extra 
property and capitation tax for school support. 

South Carolina received from the Peabody Board during the 
first ten years of its operation about $28,000, which was less than 
the appropriations to any other State except Texas during that 
time. Local conditions were in large measure responsible for this 
small share in the bounty. When the Confederacy collapsed there 
was little if anything which resembled civil power in the State. 
Local officers undertook to exercise their functions in an effort to 
maintain order, but conditions were so confusing that there was no 
power, save that of the United States Army, adequate to the pro- 
tection of life and property, and until President Johnson named a 
provisional governor military authority alone existed in the State. 
This authority was of general scope, having jurisdiction where 
police regulations, the jury system, and other forms of govern- 
mental administration had hitherto operated. Instances of injus- 
tice were numerous, and the administration of military authority 
was harsh and its power frequently used in a most arbitrary fashion. 

These discouraging conditions continued until 1865, when the 
presidential plan of restoring the Southern States was begun in 



402 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

South Carolina. When the so-called military or congressional plan 
of reconstruction began in 1867 conditions were even more con- 
fusing than before. When the Peabody Board began its work 
there the same year "a more complete state of prostration as to 
all the means of education" had rarely been witnessed. 

These desolate conditions were true of the State generally ex- 
cept in a few of the large towns where ante-bellum educational 
conditions were better and where efforts were made to maintain 
schools even during the darkest days of the period. In Charleston, 
for example, which was one of the first towns which Dr. Sears 
visited, the white school population numbered three thousand, and 
two thirds of the children were in school. The buildings were 
good, the schools well conducted, and there was an available 
school tax in the town of nearly $20,000. Columbia, which was 
perhaps more desolated and broken up by the war than any other 
Southern city, was making courageous efforts to maintain schools. 
The white children of Anderson were without the means of educa- 
tion at that time, and only half of the white children in Greenville 
were in school. But in nearly every town which the general agent 
visited ample means were found for educating the colored children. 
Assistance was given to Anderson and Greenville as well as to most 
of the other towns visited, and aid was continued until the com- 
munities were able to maintain schools without outside assistance. 
Appropriations were also made to teachers' institutes and other 
forms of normal instruction and to the support of a state agent of 
the Board. 

Complaints of unfaithfulness of state officials in the use of the 
school funds and of the incompetency and indifference of school 
officers were chronic during these years. The condition of the 
finances was deplorable, and the means of school support were both 
inadequate and uncertain. Teachers were frequently "compelled to 
toil on without receiving their hard-earned and scanty wages." In 
February, 1871, the teachers of Charleston had been without com- 
pensation for six months, and the city treasury was still empty. In 
other communities similar or worse conditions prevailed. Moreover, 



THE PEABODY FUND 403 

the dominating power of the negro also added confusion, and pub- 
lic confidence was weakened by the diversion of school funds 
and by the failure of the State to make good its promises. These 
and other conditions greatly impeded the progress of common- 
school education in the State, produced evils which were not fore- 
seen and which were difficult to correct, and created difficulties 
which made it practically impossible for the Peabody Board to 
accomplish as much as in some other States. Applications for 
assistance from the Board were few for most of the years between 
1867 and 1876, but toward the close of that period Dr. Sears said 
of the State, ''We are eagerly looking for such action on her part 
as will justify us in giving aid to a large number of schools ; and 
measures have already been taken for this purpose, with good 
prospects of success." 

When the Peabody Board first began its work in Tennessee 
there appeared an unsympathetic attitude toward public schools, 
funds for school purposes were inadequate, the teachers of the 
State were poorly prepared, and the educational situation there was 
described as ''all-round inefficient." Political disorders had much 
to do with producing these conditions. Dr. Sears went to Nash- 
ville in the autumn of 1867, on invitation of the state superin- 
tendent, to appear before the Legislature and to address a meeting 
of the State Teachers' Association on the subject of organizing a 
state system of public education. His visit was productive of 
excellent and encouraging results. He also attended a meeting of 
teachers and county superintendents of East Tennessee at Knox- 
ville, where he found the most prominent and influential people 
deeply interested in the matter of educational improvement. 
^In 1870, however, a slight reaction set in, and the work of the 
schools was temporarily arrested by an act of the Legislature which 
substituted an inefficient county system of schools for the old one, 
and ''three fourths of all the counties treated the matter of schools 
with utter neglect." The county courts alone had authority to 
levy a school tax, and aversion to taxation made it easy for them 
to neglect their duty in this respect. However, the numerous 



404 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

places which continued to call on the Peabody Board for aid 
showed how disgusted the people were with inefficient legislation 
and how determined some of them were, even without aid from the 
State, to maintain a system of free schools until there was a law 
requiring them. 

In 1872 the State Teachers' Association petitioned the Peabody 
Board for the expenses and salary of an agent to canvass the State 
in the interest of public schools. This association was composed 
of ''enlightened and enterprising men, among whom were num- 
bered the presidents and professors of the various literary institu- 
tions of the State." In January of that year an agent of the 
association was appointed and made assistant superintendent of 
public instruction. At this time the state system of schools was 
described as "utterly devoid of vitality." The work of this agent 
was so successful, however, that the association which he repre- 
sented appointed a legislative committee to draft a better school 
law, and this was passed substantially as it was drafted. Through 
the State Teachers' Association, the Journal of Education, and the 
work of the teachers' institutes improvement in educational condi- 
tions began to appear again and public schools began to multiply. 
Through its Tennessee trustee, Judge Watson, and the governor 
of the State the Peabody Board proposed to the Legislature to 
establish a state normal school, and by joint action of the Trustees 
and the Legislature the literary department of the University of 
Nashville was converted into such an institution. Its first session 
began in December, 1875, with Eben S. Stearns as president. 
Temporary funds of $12,000 a year were provided, one half of 
which was appropriated by the Peabody Board. 

There was considerable evidence of reaction in the State, as in 
all the Southern States, after 1876. The Legislature of that year 
curtailed expenses as much as possible and greatly disappointed 
the friends of public education by failing to increase the school 
appropriations^ "Necessity of reform in the State expenditures" 
was given as an explanation of this action. The Legislature also 
abolished the office of county superintendent, and only the veto of 



THE PEABODY FUND 405 

the governor saved the office of state superintendent. The friends 
of education were sorely perplexed, and its enemies invariably 
joined that party which insisted on the strictest economy and 
sought by niggardly appropriations to jeopardize a system which 
they dared not openly assail. On this matter of reducing educa- 
tional expenditures a fierce fight ensued not only in Tennessee but 
in practically all the Southern States^ 

The Peabody Board continued its work of aiding various com- 
munities in the State and of stimulating interest in multiplying and 
improving public schools. Normal instruction was also greatly 
stimulated. In 1878 nineteen scholarships, valued at $200 each, 
were given to the Normal School at Nashville to be awarded to 
pupils outside Tennessee. This part of the work of the Peabody 
Fund gradually grew and proved of tremendous influence for many 
years. In the same year ten white and fifteen colored teachers' 
institutes were aided in Tennessee. For the ten years ending 1877 
nearly $200,000 was appropriated to the State by the Peabody 
Board. 

Texas received from the Peabody Board during the first ten 
years of its work in the South less than $19,000, which was the 
smallest sum appropriated to any State during that time. After- 
wards, however, the annual appropriations increased, and by 1897 
more than $141,000 had been distributed in the State from that 
source. Mr. Peabody was anxious for work to begin in the State 
early, but the general agent did not visit it until 1869, and only 
$1000 seems to have been appropriated there before 1874. The 
tide of immigration was greatly swelling from the Gulf States, from 
the Northern and Western States, and from almost every part of 
Europe. Many Germans were settling in the western part of the 
State, around San Antonio and Austin, and there was a rapid 
multiplication and growth of towns. Everywhere that Dr. Sears 
visited he found progressive and intelligent men who were eager 
for wise educational legislation. During his first visit there three 
different committees were appointed, "consisting of the most in- 
telligent men, without distinction of party, to confer with the 



406 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

Legislature on the subject of a system of public instruction." The 
general agent was also invited to address the Legislature the 
following April. 

But the Board was unable to do any very effective work until 
the passage of a school law. In the spring of 1870 school legis- 
lation was enacted, but it was so impracticable that it was 
abandoned the following year. And there were other confusing 
conditions. The governor had nominated a state superintendent 
of schools, but the Senate refused to confirm the nomination, and 
the entire school system was thus rendered inoperative. No county 
seems to have undertaken to carry into effect the provisions of the 
law of 1870. 

The following year a new school law was passed and provision 
was made for setting in operation a public-school system. All the 
machinery of the system was provided for, and the school fund, 
though badly plundered, was still larger than that of any other 
Southern State, amounting to more than $2,285,000. But the 
schools were begun in the face of great opposition and during a 
period of fierce party strife. The originators of the law had little 
confidence in the people, and the people in turn were distrustful 
of the originators of the law and the school system. " One party 
wielded the law to overcome public sentiment ; and the other 
wielded public sentiment to overcome the law." Complaints were 
made by both sides. The friends of the law and of the school 
system asserted that there was opposition, and the other side 
held that recklessness and extravagance had been practiced in 
public expenditures. Finally, the opposition prevailed, and addi- 
tional school legislation was enacted. 

A difference of opinion on public education continued. Some 
people believed that the public schools were abolished, while others 
contended that only the power to waste public funds was abolished. 
Whatever the fact, the schools suffered, and in 1873 Dr. Sears re- 
ported : " In the present unsettled state of school matters in 
Texas we should not be justified in making donations from our 
fund. We therefore feel obliged to wait till we can do it more in 



THE PEABODY FUND 407 

accordance with our rules and usages." He here referred to re- 
quests from the state superintendent "to do something which our 
rules do not allow ; such as purchasing apparatus, paying teachers 
over and above their stipulated wages, and making up deficiencies 
in the school fund arising from neglect to collect the taxes legally 
assessed." 

In 1874 conditions were more or less unchanged in the State, 
and the general agent said, "Time only will show whether vigor- 
ous measures will be taken to supply the great educational wants 
of the State." A year later a new constitution was framed for the 
State, and while it was defective, lacking a provision for a state 
superintendent. Dr. Sears reported "indications of a new move- 
ment." But he had not properly read the signs of the times, for 
in 1876 conditions were still confusing. Soon, however, an en- 
couraging change appeared. Through a local agent of the Board 
many sections of the State had been visited, and there was a 
noticeable change in sentiment for public education. The press 
and the politicians declared themselves in favor of public schools, 
and denotninational hostility to them, which had been a serious 
educational impediment, was decreasing. A new era began to 
dawn for the State, and the schools seemed to be prospering. In 
1878 a state official said, "The system has taken such deep root 
in the popular mind that no fears need now be entertained for 
the future." After that time the annual appropriations were more 
numerous, and schools in many towns and communities were sub- 
stantially assisted. The effect thus produced upon public senti- 
ment was very marked and encouraging to the friends of public 
education. 

Virginia shared more bountifully in the distribution of the fund 
than any other Southern State. Nearly $18,000 came to the 
State in 1868 and 1869, before the school system created by the 
new constitution and the new school law had begun operation, and 
there were few years when its appropriations from that source were 
not larger than those made to any other State. This early and large 
participation in the distribution of the fund was not unlikely due 



408 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

to the direct influence of the general agent, who, soon after his 
appointment, took up his residence at Staunton and thus came 
directly in touch with the educational interests of the State. More- 
over, almost immediately on his arrival he was invited to address 
the constitutional convention in session in Richmond. The address 
set forth in a very convincing manner the principle of universal 
free schools. The convention ordered ten thousand copies of the 
address printed, and these were distributed broadcast throughout 
the State. In this way the purpose of the fund and the work of the 
general agent early came to be understood and appreciated in 
the State. Before the principal of the fund was finally distributed, 
in 1 9 10, Virginia had received about $400,000 from the bounty. 

It was not the appropriations, however, which had the most 
beneficial influence in Virginia, nor was this the final result in 
any State aided by the Peabody Fund ; but as an incentive to local 
effort and community enterprise and, finally, as a stimulant to the 
development of local taxation for school support, the fund rendered 
its greatest and most lasting service. Moreover, it helped to create 
and sustain a healthy public opinion which expressed itself in 
legislative action. And Virginia, like all the Southern States, 
needed this stimulation. Like all the members of the late Con- 
federacy, it was in a condition of almost hopeless impoverishment 
and destitution. Business had been demoralized in a manner un- 
precedented in history ; banks and corporations had been closed or 
temporarily suspended ; securities were valueless, and everywhere 
a condition of stagnation prevailed. In such conditions education 
was hardly expected to claim paramount attention ; other interests 
apparently as immediate and vital had first to be cared for. But 
through the work of the fund and the personal efforts of Dr. Sears 
attention gradually turned to the means of putting life and hope 
in the State through the development of a public-school system. 

Dr. Sears found that most of the public leaders of the State 
believed that it would be wiser and more effective to employ the 
fund in preparing primary teachers than to use it in giving pri- 
mary instruction to the children of the State, The general agent 



THE PEABODY FUND 409 

himself believed that the education given in the colleges and other 
higher institutions of learning was sufficient to supply the more 
prosperous part of the population liberally with the means of 
schools, but provision for primary education appeared to him to 
be "very defective, and, in many places, can not be said to exist 
at all." The lack of competent primary teachers called for serious 
attention, and provision was immediately made for training twenty 
teachers in the Richmond Normal School, for ten or more teachers 
in Hollins Institute, and for ten teachers in Emory and Henry 
College. 

In those towns where efforts were made to make appropriations 
for primary schools political questions were engrossing the public 
mind, and "the present was considered an inauspicious time for 
action." There was, however, no spirit of antagonism to the plans 
of the Peabody Board, "but a state of anxiety in regard to the 
future from which it was not easy, even temporarily, to divert the 
public mind." The spirit of uncertainty and of unrest seemed so 
disastrous to the cause of public education that the general agent 
was forced to move cautiously in his efforts to distribute funds to 
certain communities. Opposition to the new constitutions and a 
rather widespread fear that mixed schools would be forced on the 
people caused many writers and speakers to place themselves in a 
more or less doubtful attitude on the subject of public education. 

The new school law was ratified in July, 1870, and efforts were 
made to set the school system in operation. The law took from 
towns and cities the power and authority to establish and control 
their own schools, however, and the state school funds were in- 
sufficient to maintain schools generally. But Dr. Sears and his 
Board continued to aid towns and villages and other educational 
enterprises, and in 1871 reported that thirty-nine white and thirty- 
three colored schools had received appropriations. The following 
year sentiment in favor of public education was growing, especially 
in the towns and cities, and there was an astonishingly sudden 
multiplication of schools in the State. Numerous communities 
continued to receive aid. 



410 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

But for the perplexing question of mixed schools and the agita- 
tion in Congress of the Civil Rights Bill, educational conditions 
would have continued to show improvement. But the public mind 
was greatly agitated on the subject, and in many cases plans to 
build schoolhouses were abandoned and efforts at other improve- 
ments were suspended. In 1875 public education showed some 
improvement, though conditions were still very unwholesome. 
Liberal appropriations continued to be made to the State, however, 
and the larger towns were rapidly developing creditable public- 
school systems. By 1877 the conservatives were rapidly regaining 
control of the state government, and renewed attention began to 
be paid to education for the children of all the people. The gen- 
eral agent was himself very much pleased with the prospect, and 
said in his report for that year, " It has become quite evident that 
Virginia has not only settled her policy in regard to education, 
but entered upon a career of progress, which, in the next genera- 
tion, will show its beneficent results in no ambiguous way." 

Certain definite results of the fund appeared in practically all 
the Southern States. It stimulated local enterprise and community 
cooperation and promoted the establishment of city and town 
school systems ; it encouraged the final establishment of complete 
state school systems ; it helped to remove hostility to the educa- 
tion of the negro ; it encouraged the professional training of teach- 
ers ; and it tended to remove the bitter spirit of sectionalism. 

The Peabody Board distributed in the South during the first 
decade of its work nearly a million dollars. This means nothing 
less than that the Southern States raised during that time for edu- 
cational purposes by taxation or otherwise between two and three 
million dollars which otherwise would not have been available. 
Through this means sentiment for local taxation began, and the 
spirit of local effort which was thus stimulated gradually developed 
and rapidly spread throughout the South. After the undoing of 
reconstruction special legislative enactments generally gave towns 
and cities authority to place their schools on a more substantial 
financial basis, which enabled them to extend terms, enlarge 



THE PEABODY FUND 411 

courses of study, and increase equipment and teaching forces. 
From this movement the town and city school systems of the 
South grew. 

The final establishment of complete state systems of public 
schools was also aided by the policy of the Trustees and the per- 
sonal efforts of the agents of the fund. Through public addresses, 
conferences with legislative committees, and consultations with 
public leaders Dr. Sears helped to make education appear as a 
function of government — a theory which was to become generally 
secure in the public mind. A property tax for purposes of educa- 
tion came finally to be regarded as legitimate and essential ; 
opposition to this means of school support had been more tradi- 
tional than rational. And the general movement for training 
teachers under state support and control and as a part of complete 
state school systems is easily traceable in its development and 
growth to the influence and aid of this benefaction. 

Hostility to or prejudice against the idea of furnishing educa- 
tional facilities to the freedmen was also somewhat diminished by 
the influence of the fund. To offer the children of the emancipated 
slaves educational advantages equal to those afforded the children 
of their late masters, in opposition to all tradition and custom, re- 
quired a courage and a liberality that few men were thought to 
possess. And while Some people slowly and with difficulty made 
the necessary adjustment, the general disposition on the part of 
representative Southern leaders to discriminate against the colored 
people was rarely seen. Cases of discrimination were the excep- 
tion rather than the rule, for most of the leaders felt kindly toward 
the colored people until foolish ideas of unworthy teachers and of 
visionary and impassioned zealots created mischief and alarm 
among those who labored to preserve the integrity of Southern life. 
In spite of the confusion of the times and the vicious conditions 
and influences which made more difficult and delicate the problem 
of sympathetic racial cooperation, the Southern States paid nearly 
$110,000,000 between 1870 and 1900 to help educate the negro. 
The apparent disparity in the number of schools for white and for 



412 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

colored children during those years was due to the extreme diffi- 
culty and often impossibility of securing qualified teachers for the 
negro schools. 

The promotion of normal school work for the training of teach- 
ers in the South was another important result of the fund. Ade- 
quate provision for the systematic training of teachers was early 
urged upon the States which the fund was aiding, because the lack 
of competent teachers was one of the chief obstacles to be sur- 
mounted in establishing public-school systems. In 1868 there was 
not a normal school in the entire South. Numerous ''depart- 
ments" were rapidly originated after the fund began to operate, 
but they were usually in denominational or private institutions, 
and rivalries and jealousies compelled the Peabody Board to con- 
fine its aid to such schools as were under state control. Soon, how- 
ever, it began to devote a large portion of the annual income to 
stimulate the establishment and to aid the support of normal 
schools, and in this work the training of teachers was given con- 
siderable impetus. This course was pursued for several years. 

The year following the establishment of the Nashville Normal 
College in 1875 the Peabody Board established a limited number 
of scholarships in that institution for students of ability in the 
beneficiary States. These scholarships were worth S200 a year for 
two successive years. At first they were accepted with a degree of 
reluctance, but afterwards they were eagerly sought after, and by 
1897 more than $364,000 was distributed to the Southern States in 
this way. The school was established for the one purpose of train- 
ing teachers for all the States, and its influence was far-reaching 
on education in that region. 

In 1902 a movement was prompted by the alumni of the Nash- 
ville Normal College and the citizens of Nashville to establish in 
that city an institution for the higher professional education of 
teachers in the entire South. The movement was indorsed by the 
Peabody Board, which gave a large part of the fund for the 
establishment and endowment of the George Peabody College for 
Teachers. The institution was incorporated in 1909, and two 



THE PEABODY FUND 413 

years later Dr. Bruce R. Payne was elected its president. The col- 
lege opened in 19 13 and is rendering a valuable service in the train- 
ing of teachers in the Southern States. A part of the principal of 
the Peabody Fund was used also to encourage the establishment 
and maintenance of schools of education in state universities in 
the South. 

While the trust was established primarily to help meet the edu- 
cational needs of the South, Mr. Peabody clearly had in mind 
the promotion of the common good. "This I give to the suffering 
South for the good of the whole country " was the sentiment which 
he expressed when he made his second great donation in 1869. 
This benefaction of a Northern man, the caution and tact of his 
Trustees, and the activity of their efficient and able agents helped 
to remove much of the bitter sectionalism which was known gen- 
erally to exist and to establish and maintain a bond of fellowship 
between the two sections so lately at war. Mr. Winthrop, for so 
long chairman of the board of Trustees, pronounced the gift "the 
earliest manifestation of a spirit of reconciliation toward those from 
whom we have been so unhappily alienated and against whom 
we of the North had been so recently arrayed in arms." 

Since 1900 rather rapid advances have been made in extending 
educational facilities in the cities and towns. This extension has 
applied in considerable measure to the secondary or high school as 
well as to the elementary school. In general, however, the move- 
ment to extend high-school advantages to the children of the rural 
sections did not gain strength until more recent years, and even 
now much needs to be done before the equality of educational 
opportunity can be guaranteed to all the children of the South. 
The rise and growth of the public high school as a part of the 
state systems, and its present-day problems and needs, will be 
considered in a later chapter. 



414 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 



QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION AND FURTHER STUDY 

1. What was the particular value of the Peabody Fund? What 
were its principal purposes ? 

2. Study the principles on which the fund was distributed and point 
out the value of each. 

3. In what way or ways did appropriations from the fund aid edu- 
cation in your State? in your community? 

4. Compare the principles on which the fund was distributed with 
the principles on which the income from the permanent public-school 
fund in your State was used before the Civil War. 

5. Was it just to exclude Florida and Mississippi from the benefits 
of the fund between 1885 and 1893? Why? Why was this action of 
the Trustees not unanimous ? 

6. What final disposition was made of the principal of the fund? 

7. Trace the development of town and city school systems in your 
State. Why has urban education advanced more rapidly than rural 
education ? 

8. How did the Peabody Fund stimulate local taxation in your 
State? In what way did it promote the training of teachers in your 
State ? In what way or ways did it assist in advancing the education of 
the negro ? How did the endowment aid in the establishment of public 
high schools ? 

9. Contrast the educational advantages offered in the cities of your 
State with those offered in the rural sections. Explain the inequalities 
that appear. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Alderman and Gordon, J. L. M. Curry, A Biography. New York, 1911. 
Ayres, Seven Great Foundations. New York, 191 1. Curry, A Brief Sketch 
of George Peabody and a History of the Peabody Education Fund through 
Thirty Years. Cambridge, 1898. Knight, "The Peabody Fund and Its 
Early Operation in North Carolina," in the South Atlantic Quarterly, April, 
1915. Proceedings of the Peabody Board Trustees. Cambridge; annual after 
1867. Report of the United States Commissioner of Education for 1882- 
1883, 1883-1884, 1887-1888, 1888-1889 (Vol. I) ; 1893-1894 (Vol. I) ; 
1903 (Vol. I). Reports of the superintendent of public instruction of the 
various States. 



CHAPTER XII 

READJUSTMENT AND THE REAWAKENING 

Outline of the chapter, i. In spite of heroic efforts public educa- 
tion made only slight progress in the South between 1876 and 1900. 

2. Poor economic conditions were the most immediate obstacle in the 
way of a more wholesome growth of schools. 

3. Sparsity of population, isolation, the depressed condition of the 
people, the curse of politics, and the issue of mixed schools were other 
obstacles which retarded education. 

4. As a result of these causes the public schools continued poor and 
defective throughout the quarter century. 

5. Occasional signs of educational interest appeared here and there, 
however, during those years, but new foundations were necessary before 
substantial reform could be secured. 

6. These foundations were finally made through increase in economic 
wealth, the rise of a strong middle class, the awakening of a class con- 
sciousness among the rural population, a new race of leaders, political 
changes, and legal requirements of hteracy as a qualification for 
suffrage. 

7. With the way thus prepared, the Conference for Education in the 
South, the Southern Education Board, and the General Education 
Board assisted in promoting active campaigns for better schools. 

8. The spirit of reform was awakened, and remarkable progress 
was made in public education during the first decade of the present 
century. 

Between 1876 and 1900 public education failed to develop and 
advance in the South as its champions had predicted. Heroic 
efforts at readjustment were made during those years, but the 
schools did not respond to the needs of the period, and educational 
improvement was very slow except in those towns and cities which 
had received assistance from the Peabody Fund, the work of 

415 



41 6 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

which was described in the preceding chapter. And even in those 
communities the growth of public education was not particularly 
marked, though the proof of their interest in schools was the 
gradual increase in their willingness to vote local taxes for public 
educational support. Outside the larger towns and cities, however, 
the condition of public schools was generally deplorable. 

Reports of conditions at and immediately following the close of 
reconstruction had proved to be too optimistic, and the educa- 
tional awakening which seemed to be at hand at that time was 
not achieved. The more creditable features of educational reor- 
ganization which seemed to appear during reconstruction were of 
unfortunate origin, and earnest efforts at reform and improvement 
soon became reactionary and in some parts of the South even 
served to pronounce the evil effects of radical rule between 1868 
and 1876. For nearly twenty-five years following the undoing of 
reconstruction the iniquities of that period were felt in public 
education in all parts of the South, largely because the school sys- 
tems which had been set up there bore, perhaps as no other part 
of the social system, the odium of bad control and partisan ex- 
ploitation. Many evils thus produced continued to be felt until 
recent years and to retard the growth of public schools. In many 
parts of the South public educational facilities as late as 1900 
suffered by comparison with those of i860 or 1875. 

Of the several causes which conspired to produce the unwhole- 
some condition of public education the most immediate was 
economic. The greatest need of the period was more money for 
schools, and this need continued to be more or less acute until the 
recent past. Prior to 1900 the economic wealth of the South was 
not large. Very little accumulated property had been left by the 
war and that little had been wasted during reconstruction, and 
during the larger part of the quarter century which followed 
material development was not rapid. Public finances were in a 
perilous condition, the state treasuries were depleted, and credit 
abroad had not been thoroughly established. Agriculture was the 
principal occupation, and each crop was generally made by a 



READJUSTMENT AND THE REAWAKENING 417 

mortgage on itself. Everywhere there was widespread economic 
depression. The valuation of property was low, and standards of 
value varied widely in the various States and often in the counties 
of the same State. In some States the value of realty decreased 
during the first and second decades following the close of recon- 
struction, and personal property increased but slightly. The South 
was burdened with enormous debts which called for heavy interest 
payments. Moreover, unsound taxing systems inherited from 
reconstruction hampered state support of schools, and possible 
sources of local school support were often so hindered or entirely 
cut off by constitutional restrictions as to be ineffective. The re- 
organized permanent public-school funds of ante-bellum days were 
practically fruitless and remained so during the larger part of the 
quarter century. 

Policies of rigid public economy were thus forced upon the 
South by necessity, and in such policies protection from relapses 
into the political and financial abuses of the past was sought as a 
check against plunder and incompetency in official position. The 
financial support of schools was very small, but generally as large 
as conditions permitted. But the school population and corre- 
sponding demands for enlarged school facilities were increasing ; 
and lack of adequate school funds gave cheapness of instruction 
and economy inj the maintenance and supervision of schools the 
color of creditable features of public education. The people of 
the South during these years were very poor, — too poor to afford 
the resulting waste of ignorance. They knew that their schools 
were poor, because they themselves were poor, but they had not 
yet learned that they were poor largely as a result of poor schools, 
or that their poverty was itself a convincing argument for better 
schools. 

The sparsity of population and the isolation, the poor roads and 
the lack of other means of communication, were other difficulties 
in the way of a wholesome growth of public schools. Real rural 
progress depended then as now upon economic wealth and public 
willingness to use it for the advancement of public well-being. The 



4i8 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

day of the building and maintenance of good roads had not yet 
come, modern and progressive methods of farming were not yet 
in use in the South, and rural life there was far from inviting and 
satisfying. Healthy spirit and interests in the school and com- 
munity were impossible, therefore, because those activities which 
come with frequent social intercourse to quicken pride and public 
interest in community enterprises were not yet developed in the 
South. Because of the isolation and the unpromising social con- 
ditions thousands of people deserted the rural sections fpr better 
educational and social opportunity in the towns and cities. 

Another difficulty in the way of a wholesome growth of public 
schools was the depressed and discouraged condition of the people 
themselves. It was noted in Chapter X that public confidence had 
been weakened by the unfitness of local school officers and the 
unfaithfulness of state officials and by the failure of the authorities 
to keep the promises made for schools. It was many years before 
confidence could be restored, and out of this distrust grew indif- 
ference and often outright hostility which prevailed for many 
years. The South also inherited defective educational legislation 
and unsound and unsuitable school organization from which it was 
difficult to escape. Moreover, the eight years' struggle for self- 
government in the Southern States, though culminating in revised 
constitutions and legislation, had at the same time consumed the 
greater part of the public energies. It had been a struggle for 
political existence, and education continued to be forced by the 
circumstances and conditions of the time into a neglect that was 
almost disastrous. 

Largely as an outgrowth of that struggle the curse of politics 
was visited upon the schools and stood as still another stubborn 
obstacle full in the face of advancement. Its poison penetrated 
deeply. In policies of school support, in organization and admin- 
istration, in supervision and control, its blight was so deadening 
that few features of public-school work escaped its ill effects. 
Unscrupulous men in office and local political bosses had been 
taught during the years following the war how to exploit the 



READJUSTMENT AND THE REAWAKENING 419 

schools to achieve partisan purposes. The lesson was so thor- 
oughly learned at that time that for many years afterwards 
county and city school organization in almost every Southern 
State was in the grasp of the so-called "courthouse ring," which 
never hesitated to subordinate to political expediency the welfare 
of the schools ; and these were often regarded as the spoils of 
political victory rather than places of public trust and opportuni- 
ties for promoting public well-being. In many places the schools 
are not yet emancipated from the damaging influence or cured of 
this traditional ill, though the tendency is now somewhat more 
reassuring than formerly. 

Another obstacle to public educational progress in the South 
had grown out of the issue of mixed schools, which had such a 
mischievous influence throughout the years of reconstruction. 
Viewed from the purpose or the result of that period the negro was 
the chief center of interest during that time. He was pitiably ex- 
ploited and by those who loudly proclaimed themselves his friends. 
Since that time he has remained a disturbing element. For many 
years his presence retarded the advancement of schools and served 
also to lower political morals and to threaten political stagnation. 

But it was not the fault of the negro that he was a social ill of 
such distressing proportions or that he stood so long in the way 
of educational progress. The curse of his ignorance, which had 
played into the hands of designing politicians during reconstruc- 
tion, continued to make him a barrier to social advancement. The 
thoughtful white people of the South were friendly to him then, and 
since that time have been his best friends; they considered him 
educable for work, for improvement, and for useful citizenship. 
They knew that the right kind of school was the only safe remedy 
for his condition. And the effort which the white people of the 
South made to share their meager school funds for his education is 
one of the creditable commentaries on public educational thought 
in that section of the country. 

As a result of these causes public schools in the South before 
1900 were poor beyond comparison. In that year the annual 



420 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

amount provided for each child of school age ranged from 50 cents 
in Alabama and North Carolina to Si. 46 in Florida and Texas, 
while the average for the United States was $2.84. The annual 
amount raised for school support per adult ranged from $2.65 in 
Alabama and North Carolina to S6.37 in Texas, while the average 
for the country at large was $10.93. The expenditure per pupil in 
average attendance varied from $3.10 in Alabama to Si 0.18 in 
Texas and S10.25 in Florida. 

The school term in 1900 varied from seventy days in North 
Carolina to one hundred and nineteen days in Louisiana and Vir- 
ginia. The average for the entire South was less than one hundred 
days, while the average for the United States was approximately 
one hundred and forty-five days. The average monthly salary 
paid teachers in North Carolina and Alabama was only $24, in 
Mississippi and Virginia it was $32, and in Florida it was ap- 
proximately S34. Between i860 and 1900 the average annual 
salary of teachers in the South decreased from Si 75 to $159. 
The average for the United States in the latter year was $310. 
Not only were salaries low but in some cases the payment of them 
was uncertain.. In South Carolina in the eighties the payment of 
teachers' salaries at the face value of the vouchers was regarded 
as a progressive step. Less than 60 per cent of the school popula- 
tion was enrolled in school and less than 40 per cent was in 
daily attendance. No Southern State had provided compulsory 
school-attendance legislation before 1900, though interest in the 
enactment of such laws was gradually revealing itself here and 
there. Only one pupil out of ten of those enrolled reached the 
fifth grade and only one in seventy reached the eighth grade. The 
burden of illiteracy in the various States was heavy. It ranged 
from 30 to 45 per cent of the total population, and the percentage 
of illiteracy among the white population was three times the 
average for the United States. 

The per-capita expenditure for public education remained 
pitifully low throughout the period from 1875 to 1900 and pro- 
vided only the most meager elementary educational facilities, and 



READJUSTMENT AND THE REAWAKENING 421 

in the country districts of the South almost no public high-school 
instruction was provided. The courses of study prescribed by the 
school laws in the various States had expanded, but the large 
number of poorly equipped teachers and the almost total lack of 
supervision rendered such courses chaotic and ineffective. The 
teachers often taught whatever their whims or fancies suggested 
or whatever they thought themselves best prepared to teach. 
Some of them did the best they could, but most of them merely 
"kept school." At best the schools were imperfectly graded, and 
as a rule the methods of teaching were deadening and wasteful. 
The schoolhouses (especially in the rural districts) were often 
log or dilapidated buildings without windows, desks, tables, maps, 
charts, or blackboards. Backless benches were frequently the 
only furniture or equipment found in most of them. The average 
value of rural schoolhouses in the South as late as 1900 was only 
about $100. In view of the poor conditions which surrounded 
the schools it was fortunate that the term was short. 

The conditions of administration and supervision of schools 
were likewise unwholesome. The state systems were rarely ever 
headed by educational statesmen. State superintendents were 
not selected for their professional training, vision, qualities of 
leadership, executive skill, or their genius for organization and 
administration. They were generally politicians, lawyers, soldiers, 
or patriots, and the conditions of the office usually made them little 
more than clerks, with short tenure of office. County superintend- 
ents were likewise deficient in professional training and ability, 
largely because of the method of selection, brief tenure, and low 
remuneration. They were usually unskilled in teaching, lacking 
in business ability, and uninterested, colorless, and uninspiring 
as leaders. The positions often went to briefless young lawyers, 
broken-down preachers, or to some other incompetent person as 
a reward for some political service. Definite qualifications for the 
county superintendent were not legally prescribed, and in some 
counties it was not expected that he should be educated. The fail- 
ure to demand for the head of the state and county school systems 



422 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

of the South recognized leaders in educational work — men of 
executive ability and professional skill — served to retard public- 
school progress, and its ill effects are felt today. 

In district or local supervision and direction the school work 
was also defective. Each little school was left to itself, with no 
attention from state or county officials, and its own trustees were 
too often interested only in getting schoolhouses located near their 
homes or in employing their relatives or friends as teachers. It 
is not surprising, therefore, that the policy of multiplying schools 
by building a schoolhouse in every little neighborhood to satisfy 
the whim of some influential family was ruinous or that the exam- 
ination of teachers was usually a mere standardless formality and 
often a farce. And nearly nine tenths of the children of the South 
were dependent for all the education they ever received on the 
rural schools, which were neglected in these and other ways. 

As late as 1900 the public-school system of almost every South- 
ern State was defective in these and other respects. About that 
time the state commissioner of Georgia described the school sys- 
tem of that State as "totally and radically inadequate," and loud 
complaints and stringent appeals for reform came from other 
States. The situation generally may be fairly well described by 
an excerpt from the report of the state superintendent of South 
Carolina in 1900: 

It is a misnomer to say that we have a system of public schools. 
In the actual working of the great majority of the schools in this 
State, there is no system, no orderly organization. Each county sup- 
ports its own schools with practically no help from the State as a whole. 
Each district has as poor schools as its people will tolerate, and in some 
districts anything will be tolerated. Each teacher works along in her 
own way, whatever that may be, almost uninfluenced by the existence 
of any other school or school authority. Isolation reigns. This is not 
inspiring or stimulating. ... I am convinced that our educational 
system has certain fatal defects, and that all efforts at improvement 
must fail of substantial results until by the necessary legislation these 
defects are removed and the system is put on a sound and safe basis 
for growth and development. 



READJUSTMENT AND THE REAWAKENING 423 

Under the peculiarly discouraging conditions which confronted 
the people of the South during the quarter century here considered 
it is surprising that anything at all was done for schools. Belief 
in schools as essential to the welfare of the State prevailed as a 
theory, but serious interest in them was not wide and deep. In 
addition to the deadening influence of the obstacles already de- 
scribed, the conservative and aristocratic conception of education 
was somewhat strengthened by the new relations of the negro, and 
the so-called upper classes believed that the meager resources for 
school support were sufficient. The theory was strong among this 
element that the function of the State did not extend to public 
education ; education at state expense was occasionally viewed as 
an invasion of parental obligation, and the theory that the State 
can levy on its property for public-school support was often at- 
tacked as unjust. These views were strengthened by the demand 
for policies of retrenchment in public expenditures and by the 
slogan of white supremacy. And the poorer people often refused 
to patronize the schools which were provided, largely because the 
inferior character of the advantages offered failed to command 
public respect. 

Here and there throughout the South, however, signs of educa- 
tional interest began to appear in the nineties. Prior to that time 
forward steps were occasionally undertaken, but only slight gains 
were made. Provisions for increased state and local funds were 
frequently urged and slight revisions in school legislation were 
made to that end, but they were usually discretionary and there- 
fore inoperative. By special legislation and under certain restric- 
tive conditions local taxes for school support were permitted in 
some States, but the general movement did not gain strength until 
after 1900. But the attitude generally held on this subject by the 
more enlightened leaders of the time was expressed by Superin- 
tendent John W. Abercrombie, of Alabama, in 1900: 

Then, if our funds are not sufficiently large, what shall we do? 
Shall we fold our arms and wait until Alabama doubles in wealth ? . . . 



424 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

What we should do — what other States have done — what we must do, 
if we would properly qualify our people for citizenship, is to give to 
counties, townships, districts, and municipalities the power of taxation 
for educational purposes. If the people of any county, township, dis- 
trict, city or town desire to levy a tax upon their property to build a 
schoolhouse, or to supplement the state fund, for the purpose of edu- 
cating their children, they should have the power to do it. The right 
of local self-government is a principle for which the Southern people, 
and especially the people of Alabama, have always contended; . . . 
yet, in the matter of providing for the education of our boys and girls, 
it is a right which the fundamental law of the State denies us. . . . 
There should be no limit, constitutional or statutory, general or local, 
to the power of the people who own property to tax themselves for 
the purpose of fitting the children of the State for intelligent and 
patriotic citizenship. 

There was also a revival of the educational press, which advo- 
cated improvements in schools and other civic interests. The 
organization of the teachers in the various States, the formation 
of teachers' institutes and teachers' reading-circle work (though 
imperfect and unsatisfactory), and the rise and expansion of 
normal schools for the teachers of both races were other agencies 
which had helped measurably to awaken an educational conscious- 
ness and to stimulate effort against the apathy and reaction of the 
period. But no settled policies for progressive programs of public 
education were inaugurated ; most attempts were sporadic, time- 
serving, political expedients which brought little permanent relief 
for the schools. New foundations were necessary before whole- 
hearted response could be made to a new impulse of educational 
reform, and such foundations were not laid until near the close 
of the century. 

The incentive for educational reform depended first on a sub- 
stantial increase in economic wealth, for without this the estab- 
lishment of an adequate system of public schools was impossible. 
Before the deadening indifference and uncertainty of the period 
could be overcome the economic relapses of the war and the years 
following had first to be outgrown. Then and then only could the 



READJUSTMENT AND THE REAWAKENING 425 

people of the South turn their faces toward the future and begin 
seriously the work of restoring Southern life and institutions. Not 
until then were they courageous enough to study and face the facts 
as they were, to demand the truth concerning the schools, and to 
seek ways of improving them. 

Economic recuperation had been very slow for many years, but 
in the early nineties it became more rapid. The production of 
cotton greatly increased, industrial interests of many kinds multi- 
plied, large capital was invested in cotton manufacturing, railroad- 
building expanded, and progress was being made in other directions 
as well. During the last decade of the century the increase of 
wealth in the Southern States was nearly 50 per cent. This be- 
came the basis of substantial increases in school revenues and the 
foundation of a new attitude toward public education which began 
to make itself felt throughout the South after 1900. 

With this increase in economic wealth there appeared a new and 
influential middle class, thrifty and prosperous and ambitious for 
and able to secure some part in public affairs. Prior to i860 politi- 
cal power in the South had been monopolized largely by the landed 
and slaveholding classes, which represented also the supremacy in 
social and administrative ability. On account of the distinctions 
generally made by property qualifications for officeholding the 
masses had felt themselves deprived of their rightful places in the 
affairs of the State. The more prosperous classes and their prop- 
erty were considerably depleted by the devastation of the war, but 
the younger generation of them, largely because of their superior 
advantages, continued for several years after 1876 to occupy most 
of the places of public leadership. But through stimulation of 
service in the war and the challenge of an awakened democracy 
later, there gradually developed an upward movement among the 
masses. They were drawn more closely together and were led to 
seek through their ambition and industry and the unity of their 
civic heritage the means of opportunity for all. As the more 
capable and naturally ambitious of them became conscious of their 
power they sought participation in social and political activities. 



42 6 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

They helped to secure a substantial response to the needs of the 
masses through their interest in an extension of public-school 
opportunities, which always becomes necessary as democracy 
becomes a reality. 

In the "awakening of a class consciousness" among the people 
of the strictly rural sections of the South appeared another influ- 
ence for improved school facilities. This expressed itself through 
such organizations as the Farmers' Alliance and the Grange, which 
often gave attention to schools and other civic agencies, as well as 
to purely economic interests. In resolutions on the subject they 
often insisted upon the necessity of education for the masses of the 
people. They believed that the uneducated people were "always 
at the mercy of the better informed " and urged that the members 
take more interest in the cause of public schools so that "the 
blessings of education" could be secured to their children. 

Before the close of the nineteenth century there had developed 
also a generation of leaders in the South who were hopeful of the 
future. They believed that the Southern people were rapidly over- 
coming the financial and political results of the war and recon- 
struction and that the time had arrived for going forward. They 
knew that prosperity and well-being could be restored only by the 
establishment of schools and that the full development of the South 
depended upon the education of all the people. They viewed with 
impatience the educational weakness of the time and insisted that 
the truth about the schools be told. They attacked demagoguery 
and attempts to exploit the public mind with vain boasts and 
declarations of exaggerated achievements. So little had been done 
for schools and so much needed to be done that the opportunity 
for reform made strong appeal to these leaders, and they thus 
helped the South to gain a new sense of educational duty and to 
seek new and better ways of ehlarging opportunities for all. 

Another influence which gave impetus to the spirit of educa- 
tional reform grew out of the radical political changes which 
marked the closing decade of the century. Numerous small politi- 
cal parties, such as the Union Labor Party in Arkansas and the 



READJUSTMENT AND THE REAl AKENING 427 

Young Men's Democracy in Louisiana, grew up and insisted on 
improved educational facilities. Another political party known as 
the People's Party, the Third Party, and the Populist Party de- 
veloped organized strength in nearly every Southern State and in 
some instances made for a powerful and effective educational in- 
fluence. Moreover, it soon became fashionable for all parties to 
pledge themselves to public-school support, and around 1900 the 
political platforms contained strong declarations in favor of that 
cause. 

The race issue, which had checked the cause of public schools 
during and for two decades following reconstruction, was finally 
to serve also as a strong influence for educational progress. 
Through constitutional amendments literacy was recognized as 
essential to citizenship and required as a qualification for suffrage, 
applicable ultimately to both races. Disfranchisement of illit- 
erates was in this way to have a beneficent influence on the educa- 
tional life of the South. It placed a premium on education and 
drew sharp attention to the need for enlarged school facilities so 
that all the people, by education and training, could be fitted for 
intelligent citizenship. Education now became the issue of great- 
est importance. Happily for the cause of schools most of the 
States were fortunate in their leaders, many of whom had been 
called to positions of leadership by reason of their declared devo- 
tion to liberal educational policies. Among such leaders were 
Governor Aycock of North Carolina and Governor Montague of 
Virginia. The large place which education had come to occupy in 
the minds of such men and thousands of thoughtful followers may 
be seen from the inaugural address of Aycock in January, 1901 : 

On a hundred platforms, to half the voters of the State, in the late 
campaign, I pledged the State, its strength, its heart, its wealth, to 
universal education. I promised the illiterate poor man, bound to a 
life of toil and struggle and poverty, that life should be brighter for 
his boy and girl than it had been for him and the partner of his 
sorrows and joys. I pledged the wealth of the State to the education 
of his children. Men of wealth, representatives of great corporations, 



42 8 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

applauded eagerly my declaration. I then realized that the strong 
desire which dominated me for the unlifting of the whole people 
moved not only my heart, but was likewise the hope and aspiration 
of those upon whom Fortune had smiled. . . . We are prospering as 
never before — our wealth increases, our industries multiply, our com- 
merce extends, and among the owners of this wealth, this multiplying 
industry, this extending commerce, I have found no man who is unwill- 
ing to make the State stronger and better by liberal aid to the cause 
of education. Gentlemen of the Legislature, you will not have aught 
to fear when you make ample provision for the education of the whole 
people. . . . For my part I declare to you that it shall be my constant 
aim and effort, during the four years that I shall endeavor to serve the 
people of this State, to redeem this most solemn of all our pledges. 

Here as in other States in the South advanced ground was in 
these ways won for the schools. Legislative appropriations for 
school support soon began to increase materially, provisions for 
state taxation began to be enlarged and made more nearly ade- 
quate, and policies of local taxation were inaugurated generally. 
Improvements slowly appeared also in the administration and 
direction of schools, and, finally, measures of further development 
came through compulsory-attendance laws which began to be 
enacted generally throughout the South. More attention was now 
to be claimed for schools than ever before, and public education 
was soon to be settled upon as the principal means of promoting 
real and lasting progress in a section which had so long lagged be- 
hind. By the opening of the new century a new era began to dawn. 

These changes — increase in wealth, the appearance of an ambi- 
tious middle class and a new race of leaders, the awakening of 
class consciousness among the rural population, the political revolt, 
and the elimination of the race issue in politics — prepared the way 
for effective educational advance.^ But there was need for organ- 
ized agencies to carry on educational propaganda so as to acquaint 
the people with actual conditions and needs and lead them to a 
new public-school idea. 

iBoyd, "Some Phases of Educational History in the South since 1865," 
in "Studies in Southern History and Politics." New York, 1914. 



READJUSTMENT AND THE REAWAKENING 429 

This need was to be met in large part by the work which 
developed from the Conference for Education in the South/ which 
grew out of a personal conference of men and women of the North 
and the South at Capon Springs, West Virginia, in the summer of 
1898, known as the Conference for Christian Education in the 
South. The meeting was small in attendance, but it touched a 
note of reality and need which gave its future work wide signif- 
icance and lasting effectiveness. At the second meeting the name 
was changed to the Conference for Education in the South. The 
second and third conferences were held at the same place in the 
summers of 1899 and 1900, and succeeding meetings were held in 
Winston-Salem, North Carolina; Athens, Georgia; Richmond, 
Virginia ; Birmingham, Alabama ; Columbia, South Carolina ; Lex- 
ington, Kentucky ; Pinehurst, North Carolina ; Memphis, Tennes- 
see ; and in other places. Dr. T. U. Dudley of Kentucky presided 
over the first conference, Dr. J.L. M.Curry, agent of the Peabody 
and the Slater Boards, presided over the second, and at the third 
conference Mr. Robert C. Ogden of New York was elected presi- 
dent and served in that position for several years. To his gener- 
ous enterprise, resourcefulness, and administrative wisdom much 
of the success of the movement was due. For many years he 
invited numerous people in the North who were interested in 
education to attend these annual meetings as his guests, and for 
their accommodation he provided special trains. In this way in- 
fluential people of the North became acquainted with those of 
congenial spirit in the South and thus gained a safer knowledge of 
Southern life, its perplexing conditions, and its pressing needs. At 
the instance of the Conference for Education in the South the 
Southern Education Board was organized in 1901 for further edu- 
cational service. A year later the General Education Board was 
formed with the purpose of wise and systematic cooperation with 
the Southern Education Board, and its services to education in the 
South have been large and varied. 

^This was also known as the Southern Conference Movement, the South- 
ern Educational Movement, and the Odgen Movement. 



430 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

Extensive and systematic field work was planned with Dr. J. L. 
M. Curry as supervising director and President Edwin A. Alder- 
man of Tulane University, President Charles D. Mclver of the 
North Carolina Normal and Industrial College, and President 
H. B. Frissel of Hampton Institute, Virginia, as district directors. 
President C. W. Dabney of the University of Tennessee was 
named as the chief of the bureau of investigation, information, 
and publication. The services of Professor P. P. Claxton of the 
University of Tennessee and Professor J. D. Eggleston, Jr., of 
Virginia were secured for the bureau of publicity which was estab- 
lished at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. The plans and 
purposes of the novel educational campaign thus begun met with 
the hearty indorsement of the press of the Southern States and 
with the practical support and assistance of the leading people at 
that time engaged in school work in the South. Able advocates of 
better schools came forward promptly and enlisted their services 
in the movement. The work and method of the campaigns which 
followed may be seen from the following description:^ 

Presidents and professors in the universities and colleges, lawyers, 
business men, and holders of office — the friends of progress and the 
molders of popular opinion were quick to see their opportunity and to 
improve it. The most practical school questions came up for discus- 
sion : local questions and those more general ; better buildings and a 
higher grade of teaching for the particular community ; improved legis- 
lation, wiser taxation, larger appropriations, and more efficient admin- 
istration of the entire educational system of the State. People gathered 
in mass meetings at their court-houses, in churches, and in public 
halls, in the city and in the country alike, to hear men talk on educa- 
tion, to listen intently to discussions about the improvement of their 
children's schooling. Larger numbers came out to these gatherings 
than to any others. Political orators and spellbinders in a political cam- 
paign failed to secure the attendance or to arouse the enthusiasm of 

iDickerman. "The Conference for Education in the South and the 
Southern Education Board," in Report of the United States Commissioner 
of Education (1907), Vol. 1. 



READJUSTMENT AND THE REAWAKENING 431 

these college presidents, superintendents, and school teachers, who came 
with their message of a brighter hope and a higher service for the 
children. 

The sweep and power of this movement appeared in the Sixth Con- 
ference, in 1903, at Richmond. Many of the speakers came there 
directly from the campaign work in which they had been engaged in 
different parts of the South, from Virginia, from the Carolinas, from 
Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, and their 
addresses in some cases were partly the same which they had used 
with the people of their respective States. This event was like the 
focalization of the best thought and feeling now coming into vigorous 
expression everywhere. A comparison of the Richmond meeting with 
the last one at Capon Springs three years before shows how fast 
things had been moving. At Capon Springs there was an attendance of 
forty-four, and two-thirds of these were either Northern people or 
people of Northern antecedents ; of the fourteen who were wholly of 
the South, one was from Kentucky, one from Georgia, and all the others 
from Virginia. There was not a superintendent of schools present, not 
one — state superintendent or county superintendent. Of the great 
schools founded and maintained by Southern people, several were rep- 
resented by delegates of great influence, but all of these were from the 
one State of Virginia. Nor was the press of the South any better 
represented ; only the editor of one paper was there. The meeting was 
significant; it dealt with a great subject, and it took into view great 
movements that were surely on their way, but it was unknown 
through the South. Three years later, at Richmond, only about 150 
miles from the former place of gathering, how different it was! The 
whole South knew of that meeting, and the South was there with 
representatives of its noblest educational institutions. 

At this meeting also there was a more representative attendance of 
people from the North than had been seen at any similar gathering on 
Southern soil. One reason for this was the place of holding the 
Conference, Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy. With the 
spread of a national spirit, rising superior to sectional considerations 
in all parts of the country, this historic city had an attractiveness 
peculiarly its own for the purpose designed. Of all centers of influence 
and of inspiring associations for the South, this was foremost, this the 
metropolis from which most effectively and fittingly might radiate the 
forces of a higher educational hfe. 



432 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

The work of these unusual agencies had a powerful and prac- 
tical influence on educational development in the Southern 
States, especially in serving to promote active campaigns for better 
public schools. Such campaigns were carried on in North Caro- 
lina in 1902, in Virginia in 1903, in Georgia and Tennessee in 
1904, in South Carolina, Alabama, and Mississippi in 1905, and 
in Arkansas and Florida in 1908, Some of them continued for 
several years, with very fruitful results. 

In many States the educational provisions of the constitutions 
and laws were revised and improved. Throughout the South 
generally improvement appeared in many ways. In less than a 
decade school revenue increased more than 100 per cent and in 
some States the increase was nearly 200 per cent. The value of 
rural schoolhouses showed a large increase, and there was marked 
improvement in enrollment and attendance. Illiteracy decreased 
from 27 per cent to 18 per cent, local taxes multiplied, and the 
school term grew from 96.9 days in 1900 to 12 1.7 days ten years 
later. 

Teachers' salaries increased considerably in comparison with 
those paid in 1900, though in most States they were much lower 
than in other parts of the country. Progress was made in the work 
of training prospective teachers through state-supported normal 
schools, which increased in most of the States, and departments of 
education, which were established in all the leading institutions of 
higher learning in the South. Schools of education were formed in 
the state universities and numerous courses offered for the pro- 
fessional training of school administrators, high-school principals, 
and teachers. Teacher-training classes in high schools of standard 
grade also made a beginning, facilities for the training of teachers 
in service increased, and the certification of teachers, which had 
not developed in the South before 1900, after that date showed 
hopeful signs of improvement. This important work was not 
promptly put on a sound basis in all the States, however, and in 
many of them there is still much to be done before the professional- 
ization of public-school teachers can be secured. 



READJUSTMENT AND THE REAWAKENING 433 

As a result of the revival movement in public education impetus 
was also given to high schools, which began to be established in 
the rural communities and as a part of the state school system. 
New interest was also given to consolidating the small rural 
schools into larger graded schools with improved equipment and 
better teachers, to vitalizing the courses of study of both the ele- 
mentary and the high schools through correlation of the work with 
the life of the people, to establishing rural libraries, to organizing 
school-improvement leagues and parent-teachers' associations, to 
improving supervision through a better type of county superin- 
tendent, and to enacting better compulsory-attendance and child- 
labor laws. 

It is said that when Santa Anna was captured on San Jacinto he 
asked Houston how he was able with so small a force to win such 
a complete and signal victory. Drawing from his pocket an ear of 
corn Houston is said to have replied, *' When patriots fight on such 
rations as this, they are unconquerable." It was this kind of spirit 
which enabled the people of the South, after more than a quarter 
of a century of difficulties and discouragement, to begin the impor- 
tant enterprise of building schools for the proper education of their 
children. Many of those difficulties were stubborn and mischievous 
and stood for years as a deadly upas to enfeeble and obstruct 
wholesome social growth, but they were finally overcome by the 
heroic effort and indomitable courage of those men and women 
who looked forward and not back and who stood pledged to the 
education of the sons and daughters of the South. 

A beginning was thus made, but, important as it was, it can be 
looked upon now as no more than a beginning. From that start, 
however, the principle of universal education has found wide ac- 
ceptance, and its application has greatly advanced in the South 
since the awakening. But the equality of educational oppor- 
tunity has not yet been practically guaranteed to all the children 
in the South, although progress is being made in that direction. 
The progress and the present tendencies and tasks of the public 
schools will be considered in the next chapter. 



434 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

SUGGESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION AND FURTHER STUDY 

1. Study the educational progress of your State between 1876 and 
1900 as shown by expenditures, enrollment, attendance, qualifications 
of teachers, physical equipment of the schools, length of school term, 
courses of study, and facilities for high-school instruction. 

2. Study the development of the economic wealth of your State 
in recent years for relations between it and increased school taxes. 

3. Do you agree with the statement in this chapter that the 
poverty-stricken condition of the South was the principal cause of its 
educational backwardness prior to 1900 ? 

4. Account for the fact that in many parts of the South public 
educational conditions were less promising in the nineties than in 1876. 

5. Study (a) provisions for training, examining, and certificating 
teachers, (b) growth of educational journalism, (c) child-labor and com- 
pulsory-attendance laws, (d) courses of study and methods of adopting 
textbooks, (e) regulations controlling the building and equipping of 
schoolhouses, (/) consolidation of schools, (g) provisions for local 
school taxes, (h) qualifications of state and county superintendents in 
your State between 1876 and 1900. 

6. Study the Conference for Education in the South for educa- 
tional influences in your State. Who were the leaders of the movement 
in your State? 

7. Why is the willingness to vote local taxes for schools a good 
measure of a community's educational interest? Why was local-tax 
sentiment so slow to develop in the South ? What limit, if any, should 
there be to the power of the people to tax themselves for schools ? 

8. List the principal incentives or causes of the educational awak- 
ening in your State. 

9. Should an illiterate person be allowed to vote? Why? 

10. What was the decrease in ilHteracy in your State between 1900 
and 1910? between 1910 and 1920? What is the extent of illiteracy 
in your State now? 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Acts of the Legislature of the various States. Ayres, An Index Number 
for State School Systems. New York, 1920. Boyd, " Some Phases of Educa- 
tional History in the South since 1865," in Studies in Southern History and 



READJUSTMENT AND THE REAWAKENING 435 

Politics (inscribed to William A. Dunning). New York, 1914. Cubberley, 
Public Education in the United States. Boston, 1919. Dabney, "The Public 
School Problem in the South," in Report of the United States Commissioner 
of Education (1901), Vol. I. Dickerman, "Conference for Education in the 
South and Southern Education Board," in Report of the United States Com- 
missioner of Education (1907), Vol. I. Hamilton, North Carolina since 
i860. New York, 1919. Heatwole, History of Education in Virginia. 
New York, 1916. Knight, The Influence of Reconstruction on Education in 
the South. New York, 1913. Knight, "Public Education in the South: 
Some Inherited His and Some Needed Reforms," in School and Society, 
January 10, 1920. Knight, Public School Education in North Carolina. 
New York, 1916. Knight, "Some Fallacies concerning the History of Pub- 
lic Education in the South," in the South Atlantic Quarterly for October, 
1914. Noble, Forty Years of the Public Schools of Mississippi. New York, 
1918. Proceedings of the Conference for Education in the South. Pro- 
ceedings of the Peabody Board Trustees, Cambridge; annual after 1867. 
Public Documents of the various States (including reports of the various 
state officers, messages of the governors, and accompanying papers). Re- 
ports of superintendents of public instruction of the various States. Reports 
of the United States Commissioner of Education since 1876. Rose, "The 
Educational Movement in the South," in Report of the United States Com- 
missioner of Education (1903), Vol. I. Snyder, The Legal Status of Rural 
High Schools in the United States. New York, 1909. Weeks, History of 
Public School Education in Alabama. Washington, 1915. Weeks, History 
of Public School Education in Arkansas. Washington, 191 2. Weeks, His- 
tory of Public School Education in Tennessee (examined in manuscript). 



CHAPTER XIII 
THE PRESENT SYSTEM : ITS TASKS AND TENDENCIES 

Outline of the chapter, i. As a result of the reform movement con- 
siderable progress has recently been made in urban education, but the 
rural schools have responded slowly, and the result is that the Southern 
States still rank low in public education. 

2. Their present low educational position is explained by such facts 
as the scarcity of funds, the dual system required, the scattered school 
population, and the low property values which have hitherto prevailed 
generally in the South. 

3. The present administrative organization of public education in 
the South corresponds in the main to that found in other sections of 
the country, with the tendency to improvement in state and county 
support and administration, courses of study, child labor, public wel- 
fare, compulsory attendance, and health regulations. 

4. Efforts are being made to eliminate adult illiteracy and to pro- 
vide more adequate instruction and training in citizenship and in 
agricultural and industrial subjects. Hopeful signs of progress also 
appear in the movement to improve the status of the teacher. 

5. Further improvements are needed, however, in state and county 
organization, support, and supervision, in the enrichment of the curricu- 
lum, in more intelligent and sympathetic attention to the education of 
the tiegro, and in making provision for more nearly adequate facilities 
for education in the rural sections of the South. 

6. Intelligent consohdation offers the most effective solution of the 
rural-school problem and the surest improvement of rural-life conditions. 

7. This improvement will come through leadership and the willing- 
ness of the people to use the increasing economic wealth for the pro- 
motion of public well-being. 

The impulse of reform and improvement which developed from 
the awakening described in the preceding chapter continued to be 
so widely felt that the past decade became one of marked growth 

436 



THE PRESENT SYSTEM 437 

for public education in the South. With the exception of the 
temporary interruption and confusion of the World War, which 
has finally served to quicken educational interest, improvement 
has been steady, and the principle of universal education has grad- 
ually gained strength. The decade just closing has witnessed large 
increases in the financial support of education and improvements 
in general educational legislation, in the facilities for training 
and certificating teachers, in the physical equipment of schools, in 
the courses of study and methods of teaching, and in compulsory- 
attendance, child-labor, and public-welfare legislation. The move- 
ment for the consolidation of rural schools and the enrichment of 
rural life has gained slight momentum, rural high schools have 
slowly increased, and the general tendency has been toward im- 
provement in organization, administration, and supervision. 

As a result of recent progress schools in the towns and cities of 
the South now compare favorably with urban schools in other sec- 
tions of the country. But corresponding progress has not been 
witnessed in the rural schools ; and in spite of the general improve- 
ment made possible since 1900, the rural sections of the South 
have not responded to the full influence of the advance movement. 
But this failure to respond is not difficult to understand. That 
movement has been most clearly felt in the larger communities, 
where the principle of cooperation has been most intelligently ap- 
plied in the solution of common questions and in the promotion of 
common interests. In such communities cooperative effort has 
been effective not only in such enterprises as tlie building of streets 
and of lighting, water, and sewerage systems but in the establish- 
ment and maintenance of public educational facilities for all the 
children. Similar lessons in cooperation have not yet been fully 
learned nor are they appreciated in the rural and sparsely settled 
sections. This fact helps in large measure to explain the lack of 
adequate school facilities for the country children and the fact 
that the Southern States still stand near the bottom of the list of 
their sister States in provisions made for financing, directing, and 
developing adequate public educational work. 



438 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

According to a recent careful study of public education in the 
United States/ the Southern States rank low among the other 
States, the District of Columbia, and the three American posses- 
sions outside of continental United States — Hawaii, Porto Rico, 
and the Canal Zone. The percentage of efficiency of the public- 
school system in each State was given for stated periods from 1890 
to 1 91 8 by applying ten tests to each State as follows: 

1. The number of children of school age attending school. 

2. The number of days each child of school age attended school. 

3. The number of days the schools were kept open. 

4. The number of children of school age in high schools. 

5. The number of boys as compared with the number of girls in 
high schools. 

6. The average annual expenditure per child attending. 

7. The average annual expenditure per child of school age. 

8. The average annual expenditure per teacher employed. 

9. The expenditure per pupil for purposes other than teachers' 
salaries. 

10. The expenditure per teacher for salaries. 

The results found for the eleven Southern States may be viewed 
from the table on the next page. For 1890, 1900, and 19 10 the 
rank of each State is given with reference to all the States (or 
territories which later became States) and the District of Columbia 
— in all, forty-nine units. For 1918 the rank is with reference to 
the forty-eight States. It will be seen that Alabama, Arkansas, 
Florida, Mississippi, North Carolina, Texas, and Virginia lost 
ground, that Louisiana, South Carolina, and Tennessee held their 
own, and that Georgia was the only State in the South to gain, 
during the decade from 1890 to 1900. 

The average length of school term for the United States in 191 7- 
19 1 8 was 161 days, while the average for the South was 131 days. 
Of the Southern States Texas had the longest term, with 146 days, 

lAyres, An Index Number for State School Systems. Russell Sage Foun- 
dation, New York, 1920. 



THE PRESENT SYSTEM 



439 



and South Carolina the shortest, with 113 days. In that year a 
little more than 25 per cent of the school term of the United States 
was wasted as a result of nonattendance. The waste of the school 
term in the Southern States was slightly above 33 per cent. The 
expenditures for public-school education in the South that year 
amounted to about $86,000,000, but one third of that amount was 
spent for the maintenance of schools which the children did not 
attend. In this fact is proof of the need for more adequate child- 
labor and compulsory-attendance laws in the Southern States. 



Alabama . . 
Arkansas . . 
Florida . . . 
Georgia . . 
Louisiana . . 
Mississippi . . 
North Carolina . 
South Carolina . 
Tennessee . , 
Texas . . . , 
Virginia . . . 



1890 


IQOO 


1910 


44th 


48th 


45th 


42d 


45th 


46th 


29th 


40th 


42d 


46th 


44th 


44th 


43d 


43d 


39th 


39th 


46th 


47th 


45th 


49th 


48th 


47 th 


47th 


49th 


41st 


41st 


43d 


36th 


38th 


37 th 


38th 


42d 


41st 



I9I8 



45th 

46th 

37th 
43d 

42d 
47th 
44th 
48th 
40th 
36th 
43d 



Although the South since 1900 has paid increasing attention to 
secondary education, the development of rural high schools has 
not kept pace with the growth and improvement of high schools 
in the urban communities ; and in many counties throughout the 
South not a single standard public four-year high school has yet 
been established. The striking inequality in secondary educational 
opportunity offered in other sections and in the South appears in 
the fact that the average number of the school population enrolled 
in high schools in the United States in 1917-1918 was 9.3 per 
cent, while the average for the Southern States was only 5.1 per 
cent. Of the Southern States Texas showed the largest number of 
the school population in high schools, with 9.6 per cent, and South 
Carolina showed the smallest, with 2.2 per cent. 



440 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

The condition of teachers' salaries throughout the country has 
greatly improved during the past few years. In some of the 
Southern States the increases have been very substantial, but 
the average annual salary paid public elementary and secondary 
school-teachers in the South is only three fifths of the average for 
the United States. This is one reason, though not always the 
principal one, why the schoolroom does not attract the most 
capable and promising young people. 

Certain other facts concerning public education in the South 
have significance. Careful estimates show that more than 15 per 
cent of the rural and small-village teachers in these States have had 
only an elementary-school training. Ten per cent have had only one 
year, about 18 per cent have had two years, 19 per cent three years, 
and 40 per cent four years in high schools. Less than 5 per cent 
have had college training, and more than 60 per cent have had no 
definite professional training. Twenty-five per cent are teaching 
for the first time, and less than 8 per cent have had as much as 
eight years' experience. Fully 25 per cent intend to quit the school- 
room after temporary service, largely because of insanitary teach- 
ing and living conditions, loneliness and the lack of wholesome 
social interests in isolated communities, low salaries, and the dis- 
covery of their unfitness to teach. It is a significant fact also that 
male teachers are constantly decreasing in the elementary schools, 
in some sections almost to the point of disappearance. Under 
these conditions evils are inevitable. Effective instruction of the 
children is impossible, proper grading of the schools cannot be 
made, the usefulness of the teacher in the school and community is 
limited, no chance is afforded for the development of the pro- 
fessional spirit of the teacher, certificating standards are kept low, 
and education generally is held in low esteem by the public. 
Moreover, the work of normal schools is regarded with indifference 
— in many instances actually wasted — when their energies are 
expended on teachers who have such brief and uncertain tenure. 

In the South, as elsewhere in this country, there has never 
been an adequate supply of adequately trained teachers, but the 



THE PRESENT SYSTEM 441 

problem of meeting this condition now is particularly difficult. The 
poor pay of teachers helps to give them an indifferent social status 
in the community. Moreover, the examination and certification 
practices in most of the Southern States still serve to admit to the 
profession a great many immature and poorly trained teachers who 
help to keep out many of the more capable ones. Public-school 
teaching in the South has not yet been stabilized and professional- 
ized, and the supply of creditable normal schools and teacher- 
training agencies is so inadequate that the annual supply of 
properly trained teachers meets only a small part of the demand. 
An increase in normal schools, departments and schools of educa- 
tion in colleges and universities, and teacher-training classes in 
high schools is, therefore, greatly needed if public education in 
the South is to develop properly. Without a sufficient number of 
these agencies no State can expect to secure and retain any large 
number of well-trained teachers. But any number of such agencies 
will not produce the class of teachers that is needed unless, by im- 
proved living conditions, larger salaries, and increased professional 
requirements, the opportunities offered in teaching, especially in 
the rural schools, are equal to or approach the opportunities found 
in other occupations. 

Certain conditions help to explain the South's present low edu- 
cational position among the other States. The Southern States, 
with limited funds, have had to provide two systems of education 
for large numbers of children scattered over wide areas. They 
have relatively greater numbers of children to educate than other 
sections of the country ; in each of them the number of school chil- 
dren exceeds the number of adult males, on whom rest the burdens 
of supporting the public schools. For every thousand adult males 
in these eleven States there are 1279 children of school age for 
whom public education must be provided. Georgia must provide 
for 1343, Alabama for 1323, Mississippi for 1370, North Carolina 
for 140 1, and South Carolina, which is the most prolific State in 
the Union, for 15 10 children for each thousand adult males. In 
eleven representative Northern States the corresponding average is 



442 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

789 children, and in a similar number of typical Western States 
the average is about 600 children for each thousand male adults.^ 

Moreover, property values in the Southern States are less per 
capita than elsewhere in the Union. The estimated average true 
value of all property for each child of school age in the South is 
approximately one third that of the Northern States and one 
fourth that of the Western States. Added to these difficulties is 
the disadvantage of the sparsity of population in the South. This 
condition developed from the predominating industry of agricul- 
ture, which has never been of the intensive type. North Carolina, 
Tennessee, and Virginia are the only Southern States with an 
average of more than ten white children of school age to the square 
mile. Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina show an average of 
between eight and nine, Arkansas and Mississippi between six and 
eight, Texas less than five, and Florida only three children to the 
square mile of territory. No Southern State has an average of ten 
colored school children to the square mile ; the largest number are 
found in South Carolina and the smallest in Texas. And through- 
out the South the policy of separate schools for the children of the 
two races is accepted as permanent. In some of the Northern 
States the average density of school population is from three to 
ten times greater than that of the South, and the average for the 
eleven representative Northern States, which generally maintain 
only one system of schools for all children, is about three times 
that of the Southern States. In the Western States the school 
population is small, but the population is largely concentrated in 
the irrigated regions, river valleys, and mining towns and is not so 
widely distributed as in the South. The meaning of this com- 
parison for the adequate and effective organization, supervision, 
and support of schools in the South is too obvious to require 
comment. 

The administrative organization of public education in the 
South is similar in the main to that found in other sections of 

^The school age here used is from five to eighteen years. See School Life 
for July I, 1920. 



THE PRESENT SYSTEM 443 

the country. For some time there has been a distinct tendency 
throughout the United States to make improvements in the com- 
position of state boards of education by replacing ex-officio boards, 
or boards made up of other state officers, with members selected 
from the people. But this tendency has not made much progress 
in the South. Of the nine States in the Union which still retain 
the ex-officio state boards of education four are Southern States, — 
Texas, Florida, Mississippi, and North Carolina, — and appoin- 
tive members of such boards predominate in Alabama, Arkansas, 
Georgia, Louisiana, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. Each 
of the States of Georgia, Mississippi, and North Carolina has, in 
addition to the general state board of education, a special board 
for administering vocational education. All the Southern States 
except Tennessee continue to elect their superintendents of schools 
by popular vote for terms of from two to four years. In Tennessee 
that officer is appointed by the governor for two years. In com- 
parison with the salaries paid in many other States, the annual 
salaries of the state superintendents in the South are very low.^ 
In seven of these States county boards of education are elected 
by popular vote. In Georgia such boards are elected by the county 
grand juries and in South Carolina by the state board of educa- 
tion. In Mississippi the county board is chosen by the county 
superintendent, who is its chairman. In Virginia the county super- 
intendent, the county judge, and the commonwealth attorney form 
a trustee electoral board which selects three trustees for each school 
district in the county, and these trustees and the superintendent 
form the county school board. County superintendents of schools 
are elected by popular vote in Texas, Florida, Mississippi, South 
Carolina, and Georgia and are appointed by the county boards in 
North Carolina, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Alabama, by the county 
courts (fiscal bodies) in Tennessee, and by the state board of edu- 
cation in Virginia. The term of the county superintendents in 
most of the Southern States is from two or four years. In theory the 

1 South Carolina pays $2400, Arkansas $2500, Alabama $3000, and the 
other States from $3600 to $5000. 



444 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

county is the unit of local school administration, somewhat strong 
and effective in some States and weak in others ; in actual prac- 
tice, however, the district is still the local unit and is left with 
certain functions, though there is a hopeful tendency toward the 
adoption of the county as the logical and most effective unit for 
the direction and support of public schools. 

During the past decade the financial support of public education 
has largely increased, and at the present time there is a marked 
tendency to advance tax rates for school purposes and to shift 
the burden from the smaller, weaker units to the larger unit of the 
county or the State. This tendency reveals the conscious effort to 
make educational opportunity more nearly equal for all the 
children. To this end school laws have been amended in almost 
every Southern State during the past two or three years, state 
constitutions have been revised, legislative appropriations have 
been more generous, and more liberal taxation provisions have 
been allowed county and district units. In these actions is found 
the recognition of the inability of the weak communities to make 
proper provision for schools unless aided by stronger units, and 
another step is thus taken toward acceptance of the principle 
that the burden of public education must be largely taken by the 
State as a whole. Of significance in this connection is the in- 
telligent manner in which certain of the States have recently 
approached these administrative problems by the creation of 
expert commissions to study and report on educational conditions. 
Among such States are Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, and 
Virginia. 

With the enactment of a compulsory-attendance law in Mis- 
sissippi in 1 918 the last of the Southern States became committed 
to the policy of requiring children between certain ages to attend 
school for all or some part of the school term. The compulsory- 
attendance movement began in the South in 1905 with the passage 
of initial legislation on the subject in Tennessee; continued with 
North Carolina in 1907, Virginia in 1908, Arkansas in 1909, 
Louisiana in 191 o, South Carolina, Texas, Florida, and Alabama 



THE PRESENT SYSTEM 445 

in 1915, Georgia in 1916; and ended with Mississippi in 1918.^ 
Revisions, extensions, and improvements have been made in some 
of the States since the introductory enactments. Now the prin- 
cipal problem of attendance legislation is that of further exten- 
sion and wider application so as to make such laws more effective 
by securing the support of public favor. 

From the facts presented elsewhere in this chapter concerning 
nonattendance of school children in the South it is evident that 
compulsory-attendance laws are not only very defective but that 
they have not yet secured — perhaps largely because of their 
defects — the full force of public approval which is needed for 
their complete success. For example, the recently enacted law 
of Mississippi is applicable in a county or district only after it 
has been approved by the qualified voters therein, and then at- 
tendance for only sixty days a year is required of children between 
the ages of seven and fourteen. In 19 18 Florida, Mississippi, 
and South Carolina were the only three States in the Union 
which did not have state-wide compulsory school laws. 

All the Southern States have some form of child-labor legisla- 
tion, theoretically in close relation to the compulsory-attendance 
laws, but in many of the States reform is needed here also. A 
few of the States have made small beginnings in legislation 
and practices designed to safeguard and protect dependent and 
delinquent children. In most of the States, however, only the 
beginnings of this important work have been made. The most 
advanced and complete plan to be found, not only in the South 
but in the country at large, is that set up by legislation in 
North Carolina in 19 19. This is the county-unit plan, which pro- 
vides for county boards of public welfare and a juvenile court in 
every county with jurisdiction over all delinquent, neglected, and 

^The first compulsory school law, as used in this connection, was enacted 
in Massachusetts in 1852, and the movement extended over a period of sixty- 
six years before the forty-eight States were included in it. The Southern 
States were the last to act. See page 10 of Bulletin No. 2 (i9i4),and page 26 
of Bulletin No. 13 (1919), of the United States Bureau of Education. 



446 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

dependent children under sixteen years of age, and requires the 
appointment of a paid superintendent of public welfare in every 
county to serve as chief county school-attendance officer and pro- 
bation officer. The operation of this system has already attracted 
wide attention for its intelligent attempts to coordinate and direct 
all public agencies which pertain to the general social welfare of 
the people. 

Important results of compulsory, child-labor, and public-welfare 
laws are the new burdens which they place on the school and the 
change in the attitude of the public and the school toward truants, 
incorrigibles, defectives, dependents, and delinquents. These were 
formerly neglected or dismissed. Now attempts are made to cor- 
rect, protect, improve, and train them as far as possible for per- 
sonal and social usefulness. But these increased burdens on the 
school carry with them enlarged opportunities which the school 
of a few years ago never had. 

The administration of the Selective Service Act during the war 
served to draw sharp attention to our public educational weak- 
nesses and defects. Thousands of men were found to be so phys- 
ically defective as to be unfit for military service. Of the 2,510,726 
Americans examined in the first draft, the surgeons rejected 
730)756 on account of physical disability. Many of the dis- 
qualifying defects of those rejected could have been prevented or 
cured by proper school instruction in sanitation and hygiene and 
by provision for healthful school conditions. Illiteracy was found 
to be very extensive also, and the lack of intelligent and specific 
training for citizenship through the public-school system was also 
revealed. But out of these revelations came wholesome influences 
for and fresh interest in new conceptions of education. Before the 
close of the war a strong impetus was given to physical training as 
a part of the program of preparedness, and the need for physical 
and health education and for instruction in hygiene and sanitation 
found ready recognition among school and governing authorities 
and the public generally. 



THE PRESENT SYSTEM 



447 



General health regulations and the physical examination of 
school children, which had begun in Texas in 1890, had been pro- 
vided for in some form in most of the States before the recent war, 
but during the past few years there has been a marked tendency 
to extend such provisions in an effort to protect the health of the 
child and the community. The movement continues to gain ; it 
now includes the examination and medical inspection of children 
for physical defects, provision for their correction by free or inex- 
pensive treatment under expert supervision, and provisions fpr 
detecting and preventing the spread of communicable diseases, 
for the employment of school and community nurses, for the 
regulation of schoolhouse construction, and for the use of sanitary 
drinking cups and the improvement of school conditions generally.^ 

Renewed efforts are being made — largely as a result of the 
war — to eliminate illiteracy, with which the South has been and 
still is shamefully burdened, and to provide more adequate and 
intelligent instruction and training in the duties and responsibili- 
ties of citizenship. Agencies for stamping out illiteracy are found 
in the ''moonlight schools" and in the work of "illiteracy com- 
missions" and of community schools for adult illiterates. Special 
attention has recently been given to the problem of illiteracy by 
North Carolina, South Carolina, Mississippi, and Arkansas. Laws 
designed to promote citizenship instruction have been enacted or 
extended, and the indications are that this problem is to receive 
more attention in the future. The energy of the elementary school 
is, of course, still very properly devoted in large measure to instruc- 
tion in certain traditional but fundamental processes in reading, 
writing, and arithmetic and to history and geography. Other 

1 Recent investigations show that 52 per cent of the children in typical 
rural schools give evidence of malnutrition, while less than 3 per cent of 
city school children so suffer. More than 57 per cent of the children in rural 
schools have defective eyes and 51 per cent are subject to ansmia, while 
the statistics for the children in city schools are $ per cent and 20 per 
cent respectively. 



448 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

subjects have gradually found nominal places in the curriculum, 
but they have not received proper recognition promptly, and in 
some cases instruction in them has often been perfunctory rather 
than real. The tendency now, however, appears to be toward the 
recognition of new and more rational objectives of public-school 
education, so that not only may proficiency in the so-called funda- 
mentals be increased by application to new materials and real 
situations but sane and worthy attitudes toward wide social inter- 
ests and personal and civic duties and privileges may be developed 
in the pupils.^ 

The ready acceptance by the Southern States of the appropria- 
tions under the Smith-Lever Act of 1914 for the maintenance of ex- 
tension work (especially in agriculture and home economics) and 
of appropriations under the Smith-Hughes Act of 191 7 for Federal 
aid to vocational education is significant as a part of the movement 
to correlate public education with the industrial life of the people.- 
Under the latter legislation funds are appropriated by the Federal 
Government for the purpose of cooperating with the various States 
in providing suitable instruction in agricultural, trade, home- 
economics, and industrial subjects and in the preparation of 
teachers of such vocational subjects. The funds for promoting 
agricultural instruction are apportioned to the States in the propor- 

1 Textbooks far use in the elementary schools are generally selected in 
each of the Southern States by a state textbook commission or by the state 
board of education serving in that capacity. Textbook legislation of recent 
years presents no especially distinctive or progressive features, but the de- 
velopment has been from county to state uniformity in most of the States, 
and uniform state adoption for various periods now prevails. The policy of 
free textbooks has not been adopted, though it has been for some time a 
subject of legislative consideration in many of the States. 

2 Corn clubs among the boys began in Mississippi in 1907 and tomato 
clubs among the girls began in South Carolina in 1910, and in a few years 
these activities had gathered wide interest in all the Southern States. Such 
clubs still serve important educational and economic purposes, and tens of 
thousands of boys and girls are enrolled in them. Manual training has 
also gained recognition in the schools of the cities since 1900 and is now 
finding a place in the larger consohdated rural schools. 



THE PRESENT SYSTEM 449 

tion which the number of their respective rural inhabitants bears 
to the total number of rural inhabitants in the United States ; and 
for instruction in trade, home-economics, and industrial subjects 
the funds are apportioned to the States in the proportion which the 
number of their urban population bears to the urban population 
of the United States. In order to receive the benefits of the funds 
each State was required to accept the provisions of and adopt plans 
acceptable to the Federal Board for Vocational Education and to 
cooperate with the Board. The requirement was also made that 
each State, or local authorities therein, or both, expend for these 
purposes an amount equal to that expended by the Federal Gov- 
ernment. This Act, which apportioned more than half a million 
dollars to the Southern States in 191 8, has met with wide favor 
and promises to help develop a strong system of vocational 
education.^ 

Other hopeful signs of educational progress appear in the 
tendency to improve the status of the public-school teacher. In 
most of the States effort is being made to raise and standardize the 
requirements of the qualifications to teach and to make provision 
for the teachers to meet such requirements by enlarging training 
facilities through more definite instruction in normal schools, in- 
stitutes, and summer normals, reading-circle work,- and the estab- 
lishment of teacher-training classes in standard high schools. The 
tendency is toward state rather than county certification of teach- 
ers, toward the issuance of several special certificates, and toward 
accrediting approved university and college diplomas and accepting 
credentials of teachers from other States. The increased difficulty 

1 Second Annual Report of the Federal Board for Vocational Education, 
1918. The sums appropriated by the Act increase each year until 1925- 
1926. In that year the total national aid for the purposes mentioned above 
will amount to more than seven millions a year, and this sum will be an- 
nually appropriated among the various States of the Union. 

- Reading-circle work, in many of the States is poorly planned and poorly 
directed and is at best haphazard and colorless, tolerated by teacher and 
local administrator alike. Its possibilities have not been fully realized 
generally. 



450 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

of finding suitable living-quarters for teachers (especially in the 
rural communities) has served to stimulate the movement for 
teachers' "cottages," teachers' "homes," or "teacherages," in 
connection with the schoolhouses. Incidentally this problem of 
living-conditions for teachers has had effect on the consolidation 
movement, which is gaining in the South. Slight beginnings have 
been made in providing pensions for teachers in Virginia and 
Tennessee and in certain cities, among which are Charleston, 
Mobile, New Orleans, and Raleigh, but the movement has not yet 
attracted wide attention in the South. 

To furnish the type of education now needed in the South certain 
fundamental reorganizations seem imperative. The conception of 
the place and importance of education needs to be enlarged through 
a new emphasis on educational leadership and expert direction in 
all parts of the public-school system — in organization, administra- 
tion, support, instruction, and supervision. If public education is 
to be as adequate and safe as the conditions now require, there 
needs to be applied throughout an improved type of intelligent 
direction and control — expert and professional skill and business 
ability ; otherwise the State can never be fully active and effective 
in promoting the moral and intellectual welfare of its people. 

It is apparent that in most of the Southern States changes need 
to be made in the composition of the state board of educational 
control. At present such boards are composed of state officers, who 
are elected for other purposes and are not expected to have any 
special knowledge of or interest in public schools, or they consist 
of appointed members with only nominal power of direction. In- 
stead of the constitutional board composed of state officers, or the 
appointive board with nominal functions, the need is for a small 
board of representative men and women who are recognized for 
their sane and progressive attitudes toward and their demonstrated 
ability to promote public educational work. 

Another point of weakness generally found in the South is the 
method of selecting the state superintendent of public schools (see 
page 443). The importance of this officer is now both potentially 



THE PRESENT SYSTEM 451 

and actually so great as to require the highest type of leadership 
available. The superintendent of the public schools of the State 
now has many more important and far-reaching functions than 
ever before. The need is not for a clerk, a statistician, a politician, 
or a professor and lecturer at large, but rather for a guardian, 
trustee, and director of all the public educational interests of the 
commonwealth. He is the director-general of the moral and in- 
tellectual well-being of the whole people. He is the State's educa- 
tional entrepreneur, and his functions are to initiate, establish, and 
maintain progressive and effective relations among the State's 
multiform educational agencies. He must now promote improve- 
ment through initiating and cooperating in the enactment of wise 
and forward-looking legislation on organization, courses of study, 
textbooks, school finances, administration, supervision, attend- 
ance, school-library extension, child-welfare work, building pro- 
grams, the training, certification, and pensioning of teachers, and 
a host of other vital matters. 

These duties demand a high order of business and executive 
ability as well as professional skill. For that reason the state 
superintendent of public schools should be a recognized leader in 
educational work, with a keen sense of duty, broad scholarship, a 
large vision of the educational and social needs of the State he is 
serving, and with an unselfishness that approaches the apostolic. 
No other officer of the average American state has so strategic a 
place for moral and social leadership as the superintendent of 
schools. 

It is an established principle in political science that expert and 
skilled leaders cannot be selected by popular election. If the state 
superintendent of public schools is to become a real educational 
leader in fact, the method of selecting him must be changed from 
that of popular election to appointment by governing authority or 
by a responsible and intelligent board of educational control. The 
task of the superintendency requires a training and a skill in edu- 
cational administration and other high abilities which are rarely 
ever at home with those qualities which so often commend men to 



452 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

the political leaders and bosses or managers of political parties. 
This important officer should therefore be selected for his pro- 
fessional training and skill, and the choice should not be limited 
to the narrow bounds of the State, as is necessary when the 
selection is by popular vote. The financial reward should be 
large enough and the tenure of office secure enough to attract the 
highest talent available anywhere. 

It seems desirable also that there should be a larger unit of local 
administration than that which now exists in actual practice. For 
purposes of local business administration the Southern States are 
subdivided into counties,^ which are also natural units for the 
successful administration of public education. In theory at least 
the county is the educational unit now generally used in the 
South, but in actual practice the usual form of organization and 
administration is the local district, under the control of a local 
board of trustees and therefore loosely knit together in the county 
organization. The local boards ordinarily carry on their work with 
no concern or interest beyond their own districts and with little 
unity of purpose or conception of broad educational policies. For 
these reasons the schools, especially the rural schools, often suffer 
from ineffective teachers, poor equipment, and an almost total lack 
of progressive, helpful supervision. 

As pointed out above, the district system is that generally em- 
ployed in rural educational administration in the South, and the 
district units rather than the county units usually direct public- 
school affairs. Under this practice a uniform system of schools 
can never be made to extend over the entire county. The organ- 
ization is largely by locality, which can never be made entire, but 
must remain one-sided in itSig<iM|itopment. Moreover, the cost of 
such a system is necessarily ex^^Leand wasteful and otherwise 
pernicious and antiquated^ The IflTal 3fstrict system needs to be 
replaced by the county as'^'t^gWr of organization, support, ad- 
ministration, and supervision; and through this larger, unit of 
support and control all public elementary and secondary schools 
1 In Louisiana the parish corresponds to the county in other States. 



THE PRESENT SYSTEM 453 

and all other educational agencies of the county should be con- 
solidated and coordinated into one system with sound financial 
support and expert business and professional direction. Then and 
then only will the rural child of the South enjoy the educational 
opportunities now afforded the child of the town and city. 

In addition there appears an urgent need for the development of 
a new type of county board of educational control. The relation 
of the county board to the county superintendent is similar to 
that of the state board to the state superintendent. Properly 
conceived its functions and responsibilities are numerous and 
heavy, and on the proper discharge of them depends very largely 
the success of the school work which the board is called on to 
direct. To be really effective and useful in assisting the county 
superintendent in carrying out progressive educational policies the 
county board should have powers and duties not unlike those of 
a city school board. The members should be chosen from the 
citizens at large and for reasonably long terms. They should be 
selected for their recognized ability to direct the large enterprise 
of a county's school work and for their evident belief and interest 
in public educational progress rather than for political reasons. 

A new conception of the office of county superintendent of 
schools is also needed in the South. It cannot be emphasized 
too often nor too strongly that this officer is strategically the most 
important in all public educational activities of the county. He 
should be a well-trained educational expert and executive, and 
chosen for professional and administrative fitness rather than for 
political purposes. The importance of this executive requires ap- 
pointment by a responsible and progressive board of control who 
is interested more in the educational advancement of the county 
than in partisan politics. Popular elections have no proper place 
in filling such an office. The functions of the office are executive 
and professional in character and require a high degree of skill 
acquired by special training or long experience, and choice of a 
superintendent should not be limited to the county or even to the 
State, Boards of educational control should have freedom to seek 



/ 



454 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

anywhere for leadership and competency, otherwise the county 
superintendent must continue to be regarded as the political 
officer or clerk which tradition has made of him rather than the 
real professional leader which the conditions now so urgently 
require.^ 

The need for closer and more effective supervision of rural- 
school work is coming to be more and more keenly felt in the 
South. Educational leaders are coming to see that one large secret 
of better educational facilities in the towns and cities is due to 
more expert supervision of the urban schools. The compactness 
of their organization aids coordination and direction and lends 
itself to a more wholesome cooperation of teachers, school officials, 
and the public generally. In the nature of the case the rural-school 
teacher suffers from a lack of frequent personal contact with other 
teachers and is thus denied the stimulation and professional en- 
thusiasm that comes from sympathetic supervision and assistance. 
A new form of supervision for the rural school is therefore urgently 
needed and must be created and maintained if there is to be 
secured for the children of the country the educational advantages 
to which they are entitled. It is encouraging to see that the 
tendency in many of the Southern States is toward a more rational 
reorganization and improvement in supervisory direction which 
promises to help put the rural-school system on the same basis 
with the better-organized systems of the towns and cities. 

One of the most confusing problems now facing the South is 
that of the proper education of the fjegro. It is a problem which 
calls for intelligent and sympathetic attention. After nearly two 
and a half centuries of slavery the iitegro was suddenly and with- 
out any preparation charged with the solemn obligations and priv- 
ileges of citizenship. Since that time the problem of his education 
has been big and immediate, but effort at the solution has been 
earnest and often energetic. But after nearly sixty years its 

^In many States the qualifications of the county superintendent of schools 
are nominal only and at best very low, and in some States the system of 
selection limits the choice to the county. 



THE PRESENT SYSTEM 455 

perplexities persist and the answer has admittedly not yet been 
found. Now the task of educating several million negroes in the 
South appears to be larger than that of giving them formal school- 
room instruction or of teaching them to read, to write, and to 
cipher. It is, of course, a task which requires provisions of adequate 
facilities for such instruction, but it also calls for instruction and 
training by which they can more readily and safely adjust them- 
selves to the environment in which they live and by which there 
can be awakened and sustained in them a keen sense of their re- 
sponsibilities to the community and the State. Only by this means 
also can there be developed among their white neighbors a correct 
understanding and wholesome appreciation of the real value of the 
Kegro as an economic asset to the South and to the nation. 

The causes which have retarded the growth of education for the 
ilegro child are principally those which have served to delay the 
development of education for the white child in the Southern 
States. Funds have been inadequate, and a dual system of public 
schools has been necessary and required, — one system for the 
colored and another for the white children. Both systems have 
been poor when compared with the public-school systems of many 
other sections of the country, but they were the best that condi- 
tions would permit. Nevertheless the poor quality of the schools 
gave rise to distrust and natural misgivings concerning the value 
of public education. This is obviously one reason why the educa- 
tion of the ftiegro has been so troublesome and discouraging. More- 
over, the relation between education and personal health, public 
safety, economic wealth, and civic betterment generally has not 
yet been definitely and fully established in the minds of most of 
the Hegroes themselves or of many others who have seemed inter- 
ested in their education. This failure or neglect has been due not 
alone to the meager educational provisions and to the lack of the 
proper kind of leadership among the Hegroes but also to the false 
conceptions which zealous but often indiscreet reformers have had 
of education for the liegro. And their activities have often served 
to retard rather than to promote the just cause of hegro education. 



^ 



456 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

In the face of these discouraging conditions, most of which were 
inherited from the period of and immediately following the Civil 
War, public sentiment for the proper education of the negroes has 
been gaining in recent years, and educational opportunity for them 
is now more rapidly extending. This appears in improvements in 
the training of teachers, in the increase in high-school instruction, 
in better school buildings, and in supplying other educational needs 
of the colored children. Since the emancipation of the megroes 
there was never a time when the people of the South were so ready 
as now to help provide more adequate facilities for iiegro educa- 
tion. In many of the States county training schools have been 
established for the preparation of teachers and the improvement 
of those already in service; better salaries are being paid; the 
normal schools are being improved and enlarged ; safer health 
regulations are being enforced ; well-trained supervisors are being 
employed in increasing numbers ; and the state programs for negro 
education generally are more liberal than ever before. 

The work of the Jeanes Fund, the Slater Fund, the General 
Education Board, the Phelps-Stokes Fund, and the Rosenwald 
Fund, in cooperation with state and county educational authori- 
ties, has served to develop a better sentiment for the education of 
the negro. The silent campaigns for health, cleanliness, industry and 
thrift, cooperation, better teachers and better schoolhouses (which 
the assistance of such agencies has promoted), have helped to win 
a way for the public education of the colored child. Agents of the 
Jeanes Fund operate effectively, training schools have been set up 
and maintained in numerous counties by aid from the Slater Fund 
and from the county and state funds, and through these schools 
new interest has been given to industrial education, sanitation, 
home-making, teaching-training, and other vital interests of the 
colored people. Assistance from the General Education Board, 
through the support of state agents of rural schools for negroes, is 
yet another useful service for negro education in the South. More 
recently the Rosenwald Fund has begun assistance in building 
schoolhouses for Vlegroes. 



THE PRESENT SYSTEM 457 

In the past the South has not been able to boast of achievement 
for the public education of the negro. And there is yet much to 
be done for his education. But the various States have recently 
faced in the right direction. The lack of the negro's industrial 
skill has served to retard the economic progress of the South, and 
so long as adequate and proper educational provision is not made 
this condition will continue to prevail. The South is rapidly com- 
ing to see that instruction and training in industrial skill will carry 
also valuable lessons in economy and thrift, in health habits, 
cleanliness, and respectability, and in regard for order and for 
law. The properly educated negro has not only a larger earning 
capacity but higher ideals of living. He lives in a better home, 
wears better clothes, has more wholesome food for himself and his 
family, has better health and higher moral standards, is ambitious 
for the proper education and the decent rearing of his children, is 
a more effective worker and thus helps to create more wealth, and 
in times of difficulty or race friction is always on the side of law 
and other. He is a more useful and contented citizen than the 
uneducated, unintelligent, or improperly trained negro.^ 

The real progress of education for the Wgro in the South is to 
be measured, therefore, by an increase in his industry and thrift, 
in the exhibition of the virtues of self-restraint, and in the prac- 
tice of good habits of citizenship. These qualities and abilities 
can be promoted only by adequate educational facilities and the 
right kind of leadership. But the real success of the l|egro as an 
effective and productive citizen depends for him, as for the white 
man, more on his behavior and his sense of social responsibility 
than on his technical or formal educational achievement. To these 
ends the elementary-school system for the megro children needs to 
be strengthened and improved by providing better-trained teach- 
ers, better houses and equipment, and closer supervision. The 
curriculum of the elementary school needs to be related more 

^It is estimated that more than 112,000 negro workers in the South are 
sick and incapacitated for work all the time, and that the annual economic 
loss from preventable illness and deaths of these negroes is nearly $50,000,000. 



4S8 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

closely to the daily life of the negro, with more effective and 
practical instruction in agriculture, gardening, household arts, 
home-making and simple industries, health, sanitation, morality, 
cleanliness, and the fundamentals of good citizenship. The facili- 
ties for training teachers for the iiegro schools need to be increased, 
and more industrial and agricultural secondary schools need to be 

, provided in all the Southern States. 

^"^ The Southern States have always been primarily agricultural ; 
and the principal sources of their wealth are still in the soil. 
Approximately 80 per cent of the people live in the rural sections 
and follow farming as an occupation. The permanent prosperity 
and well-being of the South, therefore, are closely dependent upon 
the prosperity and well-being of the rural population, for what- 
ever affects their welfare affects also the South and the nation. 
It is for this reason that the strategic point in the South's future 
growth appears in the kind of provision that is made for the 
education and training of the large army of rural children. 

From the facts pointed out above it is evident that adequate 
educational facilities have not yet been provided for these children 
and that equality of educational opportunity does not exist for 
them. Differences between the educational advantage offered the 
children of the country and those provided for the children of the 
towns and cities are glaring. In available school funds, in build- 
ings and equipment, in length of school term, in effective teaching, 
in organization, subject matter, and supervision, in teachers' sal- 
aries, and in numerous other particulars the rural school is gen- 
erally inferior to the school in the town or city. 

The available school funds for each town or city child are more 
than twice that provided for each rural child in the South. The 
value of the school property provided for each city child is between 
three and four times greater than that provided for the rural child. 
The annual salary of the city teacher is nearly twice that now paid 
the rural teacher. In several of the Southern States the school 
term provided for the rural children is 30 per cent shorter than 
that provided for the city children. In these and other ways the 



THE PRESENT SYSTEM 459 

city child is favored, and in the pubhc mind he is regarded as de- 
serving a larger and better educational opportunity than that now 
provided for the country child. These conditions make it evident 
that equal educational rights are not guaranteed to the larger 
number of the children of the South. 

The differences between the educational facilities afforded the 
city child and those offered the country child are numerous. A 
bright boy in a typical rural school in the South receives fewer 
than two visits a year from a supervising school officer. He is 
taught by a teacher who probably holds a certificate lower than 
that of the standard grade issued by the State. Moreover, that 
teacher is undertaking to do from four to seven grades of work. 
She has from twenty-five to thirty-five daily recitations of from 
only ten to twelve minutes each. At best the bright boy in the 
rural school receives only about fifty-five or sixty minutes' instruc- 
tion each day, or about one sixth of his school time. The rest 
of his time he is forced to spend aimlessly at his desk, with the 
resulting tendency toward idleness and other evils which appear 
when children are not properly supervised and directed. 

Another boy of the same age and of the same mental capacity 
finds the case different in a well-graded town or rural consolidated 
school. At the head of this school is a well-trained principal or 
supervisor, who visits the various rooms daily or several times 
each week to assist the teachers. In most cases these teachers are 
well trained, hold standard certificates, and are allowed to teach 
only a limited number of recitations each day. This city boy has 
a much larger annual school term and receives daily a much larger 
part of the teacher's time for actual class instruction — perhaps 
three or four times as much as that provided for the boy in the 
typical rural school. 

These facts mean that the Southern States have not yet provided 
adequate educational advantages for fully four fifths of their chil- 
dren, that rural education has not yet been standardized and 
modernized, and that it has not been touched by the spirit of 
improvement which has been marked in urban education in recent 



46o ■ PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

years. They mean that to make better provision for the education 
of the children who live in the rural districts the Southern States 
have a distinct obligation, and that this task calls for intelligent 
thought and a high type of educational leadership. Thoughtful 
consideration of the discrimination that now exists against four 
fifths of the children of the South leads to certain important ques- 
tions : How can the educational advantages now enjoyed by the 
20 per cent be enjoyed also by the other 80 per cent? How can 
the rural children be provided with safer and better school 
buildings, equipment, and grounds, better-trained teachers, richer 
courses of study, closer and more helpful supervision and direction, 
and numerous other advantages now denied them ? ^ 

The best experience of the country shows that the answer to 
these questions is found in the consolidation of the small ineffec- 
tive schools into larger, better-organized, and more closely directed 
schools. Consolidation means provision for enlarged educational 
opportunity. It means concentrated and purposeful educational 
effort. It means better teachers and more effective training for 
the large army of boys and girls of the rural sections, many of 
whom are now forced to depend on the small, ineffective schools 
for practically all the educational training they ever receive. In 
several States consolidation has proved itself a forward step 
toward providing equality of educational opportunity for all the 
children, and through it many of the persistent problems now fac- 
ing rural education in the South can be solved. 

Consolidation means the union of small, weak, poorly graded, 
poorly attended, and poorly taught schools into a large, strong, 
and well-graded school, properly located, adequately equipped, and 
effectively taught by competent, well-trained teachers. The one- 
teacher or one-room school is inferior to the larger and better- 
directed school. Its natural limitations are many, and it cannot 
give the children and the community the service needed. The 

iln 1918 the number of rural schools having only one room varied from 
42 per cent in Texas to 81 per cent in Arkansas. More than 65 per cent of 
all the rural schools in the South at that time had only one room. 



THE PRESENT SYSTEM 461 

purpose of the consolidated school is to afford a larger and better 
educational service to the community it is set up to serve. Intelli- 
gent consolidation gives comfortable, safe, and adequate school 
buildings, equipment, and grounds, and an adequate number of 
teachers with sufficient time to do effectively the work in the 
usual elementary-school and secondary-school subjects and in 
manual training, domestic science and domestic art, agriculture, 
and other subjects demanded by the needs of the times. The 
teacher of the small, one-room school, with its various grades 
of work, now finds it well-nigh impossible to give proper attention 
to the prescribed subjects, to say nothing of directing any work 
whatever in the modern subjects which find a place in the larger 
and better-organized schools in the towns and cities. 

Results that follow from actual cases of consolidation show the 
following distinct advantages of the plan : 

1. Intelligent consolidation means a larger taxable area, and 
thus makes the district strong and financially more effective than 
the smaller, weaker district can possibly be. 

2. It means more comfortable, convenient, and attractive and 
better-equipped school buildings. In such buildings the health and 
the morals of the children are safeguarded to a greater degree than 
is possible in the smaller, one-room schools. 

3. Because of the more nearly adequate salaries and the oppor- 
tunity afforded for an effective and agreeable division of labor and 
for more systematized work, the consolidated school insures better- 
trained teachers, who are willing to remain for long terms in the 
same communities. 

4. The intelligently consolidated school makes possible a more 
nearly complete course of study, including the high-school subjects, 
agriculture, domestic science, industrial arts, drawing, music, and 
other courses which are always found in the best type of modern 
schools. 

5. The consolidated school affords a better grading and clas- 
sification of pupils and a general standardization of the entire 
work. More time can be given to each recitation, thus increasing 



462 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

the opportunity of the individual pupil for thoroughness of work. 
Better-organized class instruction, such as that found in the con- 
solidated schools, becomes a source of inspiration and thus assists 
in the development of leadership. In the consolidated school the 
.time of the teacher is not frittered away by having to teach such 
a large number of classes daily. 

6. In the consolidated school opportunity is afforded for a 
closer and more intelligent supervision which is now impracticable 
in rural sections with dozens of little schools scattered all over the 
county. Such supervision improves the effectiveness of the teach- 
ers and furnishes the professional contacts now denied the teachers 
of the small schools. 

7. The consolidated school affords the child the chance to 
secure a high-school education near his own home, an opportunity 
now by no means within the reach of most country boys and girls 
in the South. Larger numbers of such boys and girls would then 
enter the high school, because the consolidated school would make 
provision for adequate high-school instruction. 

8. By means of the adequately equipped consolidated school a 
great saving is thus made possible in the expense of sending chil- 
dren away from home for high-school training or preparation for 
college. 

9. The consolidated school stimulates and develops a more 
wholesome and attractive community spirit and interest, which are 
reflected by church, social, and other community organizations 
and activities. 

ID. The consolidated school enriches and strengthens the lives 
of the boys and girls and the men and women of the community 
which it serves. Larger classes than are usually found in the small 
rural schools add to the interest of the pupils. The stimulation 
thus afforded serves to broaden the lives and the interests of the 
children and to hold them in school. 

II. Intelligent consolidation tends to develop a more healthy 
spirit and interest in the school and in the community. The de- 
bating clubs, literary societies, musical clubs, athletic contests, 



THE PRESENT SYSTEM 463 

parent-teachers' associations, and other organizations for the men 
and the women of the community tend to create a wholesome spirit 
which is not possible in the small community of the one-room 
school. Pride and public interest are quickened and confidence 
and enthusiasm are inspired by varied social activities made pos- 
sible in the community of the consolidated school. 

12. Experience shows that the consolidated school insures the 
enrollment of a larger percentage of the children of school age, 
insures a better attendance of those enrolled, affords a longer term, 
keeps the boys and girls in school, accomplishes greater results in 
the same length of time, secures better management and better 
discipline because better organized than the smaller school, insures 
more competent school officials by having a larger district from 
which to select them, and affords all the children the same chances 
for better educational advantages which, under the small-district 
school system, only a small number now have. What is now the 
privilege of a few will then become equally the opportunity of all. 
The consolidated school makes compliance with the compulsory- 
attendance law more nearly feasible and justifiable ; it helps to 
eliminate truancy, to reduce irregular attendance, and to reduce 
tardiness to a minimum ; it enhances the value of farm lands and 
real estate in the community served by the school and is closely 
related to public interest in good roads and improved transporta- 
tion facilities. 

The consolidation of schools naturally involves the transporta- 
tion of the pupils. This is one of the difficult parts of successful 
consolidation, and upon the successful solution of this difficulty 
depends in large measure the success of consolidation. Failure at 
this point means complete failure of the plan. But if the Southern 
States carry out successfully the creditable road-building programs 
now in process and in contemplation, this problem of consolida- 
tion will sooner or later become relatively easy of solution. The 
condition of the roads, however, while naturally somewhat affect- 
ing transportation, need not always be its greatest hindrance. If 
roads are passable for any other kind of wagon it will be practicable 



464 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

for the school wagon to get over them. In most cases school 
wagons or motor busses can be employed. Experience shows that 
wherever the roads are of the improved kind the motor truck 
or motor bus is more satisfactory and advantageous, but wherever 
the roads are unimproved the horse-drawn wagon has been found 
to give highly satisfactory results. The manufacture of school 
wagons and motor trucks has now come to be a large industry. 
They are strongly built, well ventilated, and equipped with safe 
heating appliances, so that the children can travel long distances 
to school with much greater comfort, greater safety, and less 
danger to their health than when walking through bad weather 
or over bad roads to the small school in the community. 

In the main the Southern States have already generally accepted 
the principle of rural-school consolidation, but they have not yet 
practically applied the principle as extensively and as wisely as 
the needs seem to require. It appears, however, that thoughtful 
school boards and superintendents are beginning to take seriously 
the subject of making the rural school more effective, and to that 
end are looking to consolidation and transportation as outstand- 
ing means by which this can be done. This feature of rural-school 
work is now claiming more attention than ever before in the South. 

Too often, however, the tendency has been to consolidate with 
reference to the desires of localities rather than with reference to 
the needs of the county at large. For that reason it appears im- 
portant that the county board and the superintendent look at their 
county as a whole, rather than at its various parts or local districts, 
if intelligent consolidation is to be made throughout the entire 
county. By viewing the county as a whole the officials and the 
people are enabled to cooperate and to act more intelligently in 
redistricting the county and in planning for a permanent school 
system. To get such a view, adequate and complete, it would 
seem essential that the board and the superintendent be in posses- 
sion of data such as the following : 

I. Information concerning the general external and internal 
school conditions of the entire county is needed. This can be had 



THE PRESENT SYSTEM 465 

by an impartial, sympathetic, fair, and accurate statement of 
actual facts, both statistical and informational in character. Such 
a statement can, of course, be best prepared by the superintendent, 
though it may sometimes be necessary for him to have assistance 
with the details. The statement should be prepared in full and in 
writing and so made as to be easily and intelligently understood by 
the board and by the average citizen of the county. Technical 
terms and the so-called "survey" terminology should be avoided, 
as well as the attitude that often appears in the survey. The 
statement should above all be sympathetic rather than critical. 

2. On such a statement helpful, practical suggestions and recom- 
mendations for improvement should be made. These should also 
be in writing and so stated as to be easily and intelligently under- 
stood by both the board and the average citizen. 

3. An adequate, up-to-date map of the county should be pre- 
pared and used, because graphic illustration conveys definite ideas 
more readily and safely. On such a map information such as the 
following should be shown : 

(c) The boundaries of the present school districts. 

(b) The location of each schoolhouse. 

(c) The location of each home, with the number of school chil- 
dren in each. 

(d) All roads should be shown. The present condition of the 
roads should also be indicated, and all road-building projects in 
process or in contemplation by the county and the state-highway 
board should be taken into account in this connection. 

(e) All natural barriers, such as rivers, creeks, swamps, and 
mountains, should be shown. 

4. Accurate information should also be had concerning 

(a) The general school interest of each school district. 

(b) The size of each school district and the number of chil- 
dren in it. 

(c) The size of each schoolhouse. 

(d) The school population, the enrollment, and the average 
daily attendance of each school district. 



466 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

(e) The general attitude of the people of each school district on 
the subject of the consolidation of schools and the transportation 
of pupils. This can be safely gained only by tact, patience, and 
innumerable personal interviews. In most cases it will be gained 
very slowly. Undue agitation does not advance the cause. 

With such information properly in hand and properly digested 
by the board and the superintendent, a tentative plan for redistrict- 
ing the county can be made with a view to wise consolidation. 
After such a plan is worked out another map should be prepared 
showing the proposed new districts as well as the old districts to 
be retained. The board and the superintendent will, of course, be 
prepared to give sufficient reasons for any and all changes pro- 
posed, and, if occasion should require, they should be able to set 
forth convincingly the advantages of the proposed changes and to 
meet the objections to them. 

Meantime there should be carried on a systematic policy of 
intelligent publicity all over the county — through the newspapers, 
the motion-picture service, the county-school newspaper, exten- 
sion work by community meetings, or regular communications 
from the board and the superintendent to the people. For this 
purpose an up-to-date mailing list of the active citizens of the 
county should be kept in the superintendent's office. 

The experience of practically all the States shows conclusively 
that there are two ways to consolidate schools in the rural sections. 
Consolidation may be made by giving attention to the effect of 
the redistricting and of each proposed consolidation on the entire 
county, or it may be gained by considering the effect on only the 
most interested districts. It may be made by acting honestly in 
the interests of all the children to be served by it, so as to provide 
the most adequate educational advantages with the least hardship 
to the greatest number of these children, or it may be had by 
acting in accordance with the desires of a few influential people in 
the various communities who may be moved by local or selfish 
purposes. 



THE PRESENT SYSTEM 467 

Consolidation may be gained by locating the new house properly 
(that is, as nearly as possible in the center of the school popula- 
tion of the proposed new district, where it will conveniently serve 
the largest number of children), or it may be had by locating the 
house near the homes of certain influential people in the com- 
munity. It may be made by wisely delaying final action until the 
time is ripe and public sentiment has been developed so as to place 
the house at the proper and logical point, or it may be made by 
hasty action in locating the new house away from the logical and 
sensible center. An ill-advised plan hastily entered into produces 
annoyance and confusion and leads eventually to another change 
which often proves costly both in money and community interest. 

Consolidation may be secured by a careful consideration of the 
funds available or to be available for it, by a careful counting of 
the cost of the new undertaking ; or it may be had by neglecting 
this important point in the enthusiasm of the moment. It is 
highly important to count the cost accurately. This prevents mis- 
understanding and numerous troubles. Failure here is likely to 
bring the new plan promptly into disrepute. 

Consolidation may be had by keeping in mind the children of 
the remote parts of the new district and by carefully planning the 
routes so that transportation for all such children will be comfort- 
ably provided for ; or it can be had by assigning to the new school 
certain children who live at long walking distances away, without 
providing for their transportation. Walking unreasonable dis- 
tances should not be required of some children if any children are 
to be transported. Every child is entitled to thoughtful considera- 
tion in this highly important matter. 

Consolidation may be had in the right way, so as to give 
wholesome and effective results. Educational interest will then 
grow in strength and wide popularity. But unwise consolidation 
will eventually destroy educational interest in the community and 
give the cause disastrous setbacks from which it will be difficult 
to recover. 



468 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

Real and lasting progress in the South depends for its promotion 
very largely upon economic wealth, the willingness to use that 
wealth for the advancement of public well-being, and the vision of 
the leaders and governing authorities and their attitude toward 
certain interests. Among these interests are the building and 
maintenance of modern roads and highways, the encouragement of 
progressive methods of agriculture, and the promotion of public 
education, public health, and public welfare generally. Rural life 
in the South can never be made wholesome and inviting and 
satisfying except through the full development of these essential 
factors. 

Happily for public education and the betterment of rural life 
advancement along these lines is now more promising than for- 
merly. Road-building is receiving more attention, and creditable 
programs of scientific road construction have been set in motion as 
an important part of the growing business of the various States. 
To local and state funds are now added millions of Federal funds 
which are available for the building and maintenance of highways. 
Improved road machinery is being bought, the best engineers are 
being secured, and armies of road-builders are being employed in 
construction and maintenance work. A new day for good roads is 
at hand in the South. The advancement of the Southern States in 
agricultural practices and in the production of wealth is also 
marked. Farm crops have increased from threefold to fivefold, 
bank resources have increased in similar manner, and the economic 
position of the Southern States has so greatly advanced during the 
past decade that they cannot longer be classified as poor. But the 
primary wealth of any people lies in the minds and hearts of its 
citizens, and no prosperity can be of advantage if the level of 
citizenship and public wholesomeness is not thereby advanced 
through education and leadership and if the coming generation 
is not thus better equipped to bear the increasing burdens of 
democracy. 

The World War drew sharp attention to public educational 
weaknesses and defects. Other influences now promise to give 



THE PRESENT SYSTEM 469 

impetus to greater educational interest and endeavor during the 
next generation. Already those influences are being felt. Educa- 
tional organization in the South promises to be set up on the more 
sensible basis of the county as the correct unit for support, admin- 
istration, and supervision, so as to embrace and furnish every 
child an educational opportunity equal to that of every other child. 
The rural school will eventually be put on a more nearly equal 
footing with the city school, and provision will be made for its ade- 
quate support and direction and the enrichment of its curriculum. 
There will be called to the support and stimulation of rural educa- 
tion the American doctrine of taxation on all the property of the 
State for the equal education of all the children of the State. Sound 
business and professional principles will be employed in public 
educational work, which will then increase in dignity. The finan- 
cial returns and the tenure of administrators and teachers will be 
made larger and more secure. Emancipation of education from 
petty politics, it is to be hoped, will finally be secured, and the 
State will take more seriously the important work of public edu- 
cation. Then the public schools will attract the strongest men and 
women as directors and teachers and be regarded as sound and safe 
in. their practices and more nearly in line with our boasted de- 
mocracy and the spirit of American institutions. 

Education is now, as it has always been, the most important 
need of the South. This need is not for education in its narrow, 
traditional, or academic sense, however, but for that kind of in- 
struction and training which will awaken sound interest and 
enthusiasm for personal wholesomeness and public well-being, 
enlighten public opinion, and direct and lead the energies of men 
and women to human service and to the preservation and improve- 
ment of free government. The need now, more than ever before, 
is for that type of public education which will make paramount 
for all the people effective instruction and training in correct ideals 
and practices of personal obligations and of civic responsibilities. 
Then the people will observe with intelligence and faithfulness all 
the numerous social and political relations under which they live, 



470 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

exercise their rights with order and justice, and perform their 
duties with discretion and competence. Then and then only can 
they understand what is going on in the world and keep their part 
of it going on right. 

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION AND FURTHER STUDY 

1. Why is public education in rural communities less advanced than 
in towns and cities? 

2. Study the ten tests of efficiency of public schools given by 
Ayres and described in this chapter, and apply them to the school 
system of your State. Do you consider these representative measures 
of a school system's effectiveness? Why? Note the rank of your 
State for the various periods and explain the causes of its loss or gain. 

3. How does your State compare with the United States at large 
in (a) length of school term, (b) salaries of teachers, (c) percentage 
of school population in average daily attendance, (d) percentage of 
school population in high schools, (e) average annual expenditure per 
child of school age and per child attending school? 

4. Calculate the waste of school expenditures on account of non- 
attendance and compare it with the average for the United States and 
for the South. 

5. Study the recent development of rural high schools and point 
out the needs of this part of the school system in your State. In how 
many counties, if any, in your State have standard public high schools 
not been established? 

6. Why is the South lacking in an adequate supply of well-trained 
teachers ? Give the principal ways by which a sufficient number can be 
recruited and retained in the profession. 

7. Note the percentage of the teachers in your county who are 
teaching this year for the first time and compare it with the average 
for the State. 

8. Compare the teachers' examination and certificating practices in 
your State with those of other Southern States and point out their 
points of strength and of weakness. 

9. Compare your State with other States in (a) method of school 
support ; (b) adoption of textbooks ; (c) provisions for compulsory 
attendance, child labor, public health, physical examination of school 



THE PRESENT SYSTEM 471 

children, and public welfare ; (d) provisions for the elimination of 
adult illiteracy and for the enrichment of the curriculum and for citi- 
zenship training ; (e) vocational and industrial instruction. 

10. (a) Point out the advantages of the county unit for the organi- 
zation, administration, support, and supervision of rural education. 
(b) What are the disadvantages of the popular election of school 
superintendents? (c) What in your opinion are the principal needs 
of rural education in your State today? 

11. (a) List the arguments for and against consoHdation of rural 
schools, (b) What are the legal qualifications for county superin- 
tendents in your State? (c) How has the education of the negro 
improved in your State during the past ten years ? 

12. How many one-room schools in your State? in your County? 
How many small rural schools have been eliminated by consoHdation in 
your State during the past five years ? How many have been eliminated 
in your County during that time ? What are the chief obstacles to con- 
solidation in your State ? in your County ? 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Acts of the Legislature of the various States. An Educational Study of 
Alabama, Bulletin No. 41, 1919, United States Bureau of Education. Wash- 
ington, 1919. Ayres, An Index Number for State School Systems. New 
York, 1920. Bonner, Statistics of State School Systems 1917-1918, Bulle- 
tin No. II, 1920, United States Bureau of Education. Washington, 1920. 
CuBBERLEY, Public Education in the United States. Boston, 1919. Cub- 
BERLEY, Public School Administration. Boston, 1916. Cubberley, Rural 
Life and Education. Boston, 1914. Cubberley, The Improvement of Rural 
Schools. Boston, 1912. "Declaration of Principles," by representative 
negroes of North Carolina. State Department of Education. Raleigh, 1919. 
Dewey, John and Evelyn, Schools of Tomorrow. New York, 1915. Edu- 
cation in the South, Bulletin No. 30, 1913, United States Bureau of Educa- 
tion. Washington, 1913. Favrot, Aims and Needs in Negro Public 
Education in Louisiana, Bulletin No. 2, State Department of Education. 
Baton Rouge, 1918. Favrot, Some Problems in the Education of the Negro 
in the South and How We are Trying to Meet Them in Louisiana. State 
Department of Education. Baton Rouge, 1919. Federal Board for Vocational 
Education, Second Annual Report. Washington, 1918. Heatwole, History 
of Education in Virginia. New York, 1916. Hood, Digest of State Laws 
Relating to Public Education, Bulletin No. 47, 1915. United States Bureau 
of Education. Washington, 1916. Hood, State Laws Relating to Education, 



472 PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 

Bulletin No. 23, igi8, United States Bureau of Education. Washington, 1919. 
Knight, " Public Education in the South : Some Inherited Ills and Some 
Needed Reforms," in School and Society, January 10, 1920. Knight, Public 
School Education in North Carolina. Boston, 1916. Muerman, Minimum 
School Term Regulations, Bulletin No. 42, 1916, United States Bureau of 
Education. Washington, 1920. Negro Education : A Study of the Private and 
Higher Schools for Colored People in the United States, 2 vols., Bulletins 
Nos. 38 and 39, 1916, United States Bureau of Education. Washington, 1917. 
Noble, Forty Years of the Public Schools of Mississippi. New York, 1918. 
Reports of the superintendents of public instruction of the various States. 
Reports of the United States Commissioner of Education since 1910. "Rural 
Health," in Proceedings of the Second National Country Life Conference. 
Washington, 1919. Virginia Public Schools. Education Commission's Report 
to the Assembly of Virginia. Richmond, 19 19. Weeks, History of Public 
School Education in Alabama. Washington, 1915. Weeks, History of 
Public Education in Arkansas. Washington, 1912. Weeks, History of 
Public School Education in Tennessee (examined in manuscript). 



INDEX 



"A Gazetteer of Georgia," 8i 

ABC books, 26 

ABC shooters, 6 

Abercrombie, John W., 423 

Academies, in Alabama, 96, 97; in 
Arkansas, 97, 98; characteristics 
of, 104-108; curriculum of, 105- 
107 ; decline of, 109 ; descriptions 
of, 77-81; in Florida, 98; fore- 
runner of normal schools, 108; in 
Georgia, 88, 89 ; influences of, 108, 
109; land endowment for, 89; in 
Louisiana, 94-96; in Mississippi, 
96; in North Carolina, 88; nuclei 
of colleges, 108 ; replaced by public 
high schools, 109; in South Caro- 
lina, 88 ; in Tennessee, 89-93 ; two 
classes of, 76; in Virginia, 88 

Academy Movement, Chapter TV 

Act of Uniformity, 74 

Agricultural pursuits, 12, 22; main- 
stay of South, 26 

Agriculture, need for intensive, 442 ; 
principal occupation, 458 

Advertisements, relating to schools 
and schoolmasters, 41 

Alabama, academies in, 96, 97 ; ante- 
bellum school system of, 250-255; 
carelessness and mismanagement 
in, 375; education in, during re- 
construction, 374-379; early recon- 
struction legislation in, 314, 315, 
319, 324, 329; first state superin- 
tendent of schools appointed in, 
252 ; permanent public-school en- 
dowment established in, 177-183; 
poor laws and apprenticeship prac- 
tices in, 64, 65 ; recent condition 
of pubHc-school endowment in, 
191, 192; school law of 1854, 182, 
183; work of Peabody Fund in, 
386-388 

Alabama Educational Association, 
253 



Alabama Educational Journal, 253 

Alderman, Edwin A., 430 

Alexander, Joseph, 85 

Alexandria Academy, 88 

Allen, W. C, 253 

Allston, R. E. W., report of, 221 

American Education Society, 100 

American Journal of Education, 169, 
280 

American Literary, Scientific, and 
Military Academy, 104 

American Quarterly Register, 100 

Amnesty proclamation, 311 

Anglicanism, 10 

Ante-bellum awakening. Chapter VII; 
school system in Alabama, 250- 
25s; in Arkansas, 255-258; in 
Florida, 261-263 ; in Georgia, 238- 
242; in Louisiana, 242-246; in 
Mississippi, 246-250; in North 
Carolina, 233-238; in South Caro- 
lina, 215-228; in Tennessee, 228- 
233; in Texas, 258-261; in Vir- 
ginia, 198-215 

Ante-bellum educational revival, cur- 
riculum, 270, 271; factors pro- 
moting, 265-267 ; obstacles to, 
263-265; school practices. Chapter 
VIII; teachers, 294, 295 

Antecedents, European, Chapter I 

Apprenticeship and poor laws, 13, 21 

Apprenticeship system. Chapter III 

Appropriations for vocational work, 
448, 449 

Arithmetic, 270; early texts on, 276- 
280 

Arkansas, academies in, 97, 98; ante- 
bellum school system of, 255-258; 
early constitutional provision for 
schools, 255, 256; early school law 
of, 256; education in, during re- 
construction, 313, 314, 319, 324, 
362-364; permanent public-school 
endowment established in, 183- 



473 



474 



PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 



185; poor laws and apprenticeship 
practices in, 64 ; recent condition 
of public-school endowment in, 
191 ; school law of, 1868, 328, 
329; work of Peabody Fund in, 
389, 390 

"Asburyan period," 81 

Ashley, S. S., 367, 369 note 

Avoyelles Academy, 95 

Awakening before i860, Chapter VII 

Aycock, Charles B., 427 

Baptists, 81 

"Barbour Bill," 347 

Barnard, Henry, 99, 197, 310; of- 
fered New Orleans schools, 243, 
note 

Barnard's American Journal of Ed- 
ucation, 169 

Bassett, John Spencer, quoted, 87 

Batesville Academy, 97 

Bell, Henderson M., 326 

Bennett, Thomas, 217; quoted, 217, 
218 

Benton Academy, 103 

Berresford, Richard, 31 

Bethel College, 102 

Bethel School, 82 

Bethesda Orphan House, 35, 36 

Bill of Rights, 8 

Bishop of London, 25 

"Black and Tan Convention," 3^9 

"Black Codes," 312, 313 

Blackboards, 107 

"Boarding around," 294 

Boone's "Education in the United 
States," 169 

Bray, Thomas, 27 

"Brooks-Baxter War," 363, 389 and 
note 

Brown, A. G. (Governor), 248, 249 

Brown, Jesse, 97 

Brown, Joseph E. (Governor), 241 

Brown, Neil S. (Governor), 232 

Butler, Pierce M., 219 

Caddo Academy, 95 

Caldwell, David, 83, 86; "log col- 
lege" of, 83 

Caldwell, Joseph, 151; letters on 
education, 151, 152 

Calloway, John, 97 

Campaigns for education, 432, 433 



Campbell, David (Governor), 204 

Cardoza, T. W., impeached, 361 

Cardozo, E. L. (Reverend), 322, 373 

Carroll, William (Governor), 140 

Catahoula Academy, 95 

Cavaliers, 11 

Chantries Act of 1547, 6 

Character of reconstruction school 
legislation, 332, 333 

Charity schools, 27, 28 

Charles I, 11 

Charleston, 21 

Charleston Cotirier, 130 

Chatham Academy, 36 

Chavis, John, 86, 87 

Child, James, 31 

Child-labor legislation, 445, 446 

Children, numbers of, 441 

Church catechism, 26 

Churchwardens, duties of, 52 

Cities and towns, progress in, 437 

Citizenship training, need for, 469, 
470 

City schools, rise of. Chapter XI 

Civil Rights Bill, 369, 372, 393, 400, 
410; effect in Virginia, 351-354 

Claiborne Academy, 95 

Clarke, James, 343 

Clarksburg educational convention, 
206, 207 

Claxton, P. P., 430 

Clio's Nursery and Science Hall, 84 

Cloud, Dr. N. B., 374, 375 

Cokesbury College, 82, 102 

Colburn's "Arithmetic," 277 

Colonial Assemblies, educational in- 
terest of, 36; libraries, 38, 39; in 
North Carolina, 36, 37; in South 
Carolina, 37, 38; in Virginia, 36 

Colonial Theory and Practice, Chap- 
ter II 

Colonization, motives of, 16 

Colton, Simeon, 102 

Compulsory assessment, 7 

Compulsory education, attendance 
laws, 444, 445, 446; early form of, 
50 

Conditions between 1876 and 1900, 
Chapter XH; economic, 416, 417; 
educational, 420-422 ; political, 418, 
419 

Conference for Christian Education 
in the South, 429 



INDEX 



475 



Conference for Education in the 

South, 429 
Congressional plan of reconstruction, 

313 ff., 317 ff. 
Consolidation of rural schools, 460- 

467; advantages of, 461-463 
Constitutional provisions for schools, 

conventions (reconstruction), 318- 

325; early, 118 ff.; revisions after 

1835, 121, 122 
Conway, Elias N. (Governor), 257 
Conway, James S., 256 
Conway, T. W., 356, 357, 395 
Corbin, J. C, 362, 363 
Corn clubs, 448 note 
Cornelius, Elias, 100 
County boards of education, 443, 453 
County superintendents, 443, 453, 454; 

new conception of, needed, 453 
County unit, 444, 452 
Covington Female Academy, 95 
Craighead, Thomas B., 86 
Craven, Braxton, 236, 237 
Crowfield Academy, 85 
Cumberland College, 86, 90, 142 
Curriculum, 26, 43 ; ante-bellum, 

270, 271 
Currin, Robert P., 231 
Curry, J. L. M., 251, 429, 430 

Dabney, C. W., 430; Reverend R. L., 
350, 351 

Davidson Academy, 90 

Davidson College, 85, 86, 102 

Davis, John, quoted, 77-80 

Defects of early schools, 294-297 

Defoe, Daniel, 73 

DeGress, J. C, 366 

Dependents, public education of. 
Chapter III 

Descriptions of early schools, 297-303 

Dexter's "History of Education in 
the United States," 169 

Dimitry, Alexander, first state su- 
perintendent of Louisiana, 244 

Discipline, harsh, 43 

Dissenters, 74, 75 

Dissolution of monasteries, 5, 6 

District system, 452, 453 

Doak, Samuel, 89 

Donaldson Academy, 102 

Dual system, 441 

Dudley, T. U., 429 



Duval, Gabriel B., state superin- 
tendent of Alabama, 253 

Early arithmetics, 277-280; consti- 
tutional provisions for schools, 
iiSff.; educational theories, 44; 
methods of teaching, 43, 296, 297; 
primers, 274, 275; reading books, 
275, 276; schoolhouses, 43; school 
practices, Chapter VIII; spelling 
books, 272-274; teachers in the 
South, 43 

Easburn, Moses, 97 

East India School, 29 

Eaton, John, 364, 365 

Eaton School, 29 

Ebenezer School, 82 

Economic conditions in Southern 
colonies, 12 

Education, during reconstruction, 
337; of the masses neglected, 12, 
13 ; of negro, 454-458 

Educational agencies in North Caro- 
lina during reconstruction, 368; 
beginnings in older states. Chap- 
ter V; interest, 27, 28; reforms 
under presidential plan, 313-317; 
societies, 31-36; theories, 44 

Eggleston, J. D., Jr., 430 

Elizabeth Female Academy, 96 

Elliott, Stephen, 102, 220; report of, 
220 

Emory and Henry College, 10 1, 409 

Endowments, 21, 28; in North Caro- 
lina, 30 ; in South Carolina, 30- 
31; in Virginia, 28-30 

English Humanists, 10 

English Poor Law of 1601, 50, 51, 
52, 55 

Erskine College, 102 

"Essay on Projects," 73 

Established Church, 10, 12, 13, 23, 
24; in Georgia, 25; in North Car- 
olina, 24, 25; in South Carolina, 
24, 25; in Virginia, 24 

European Antecedents, Chapter I 

Falkner, Kinloch, 316 
Far West Seminary, 103 
Farmers' Alliance, 426 
Fayetteville Female Academy, 97 
Federal Board of Vocational Educa- 
tion, 449 



476 



PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 



Fellenberg, 98, 303 

Financial support, 444 

Fisk, F. A., 368 

Five Mile Act, 74 

Florida, academies in, 98; ante- 
bellum school system of, 261-263; 
bitterness and violence in, 358; 
early school law of, 262 ; educa- 
tion in, during reconstruction, 357- 
359; Education Society, 98, 261, 
262 ; interest in normal training 
in, 263 ; omitted from benefits of 
Peabody Fund, 391 ; permanent 
public-school endowment estab- 
lished in, 186, 187; poor laws and 
apprenticeship practices in, 65, 66; 
public debt of, during reconstruc- 
tion, 358 note; recent condition of 
permanent public-school endow- 
ment, 191 ; school law of 1869, 
329-330; women's educational or- 
ganization in, 262; work of Pea- 
body Fund in, 390, 391 

Flyleaf scribblings, 292, 293 

Fourteenth Amendment, 312,313,318 

Franklin, Benjamin, 35 and note, 73, 

74 
Franklin College, 84 
Franklinton Academy, 95 
Fredericksburg Academy, 88 
Freedmen, education of, aided, 368; 

education of, aided by Peabody 

Fund, 411, 412 
Freedmen's Bureau, 328, 359, 368 
"French Club," 33, 34 
Frissell, H. B., 430 
Furman University, 102 

General Education Board, 429, 456 
Geography, 270, 271; early texts on, 

280-286 
Georgia, 14, 23, 25, 28, 34, 316, 319, 
324; academies in, 88, 89; ante- 
bellum school system of, 238-242 ; 
apprenticeship and poor-law prac- 
tices in, 62, 63; county academies 
of, 133, 134, 136; early school law 
of, 133-138; education in, during 
reconstruction, 354-356; Estab- 
lished Church in, 25 ; literary fund 
of, 136; permanent public-school 
endowment established in, 170- 
172; school law of 1783, 133; 



school law of 1822, 136; school 
law of 1837, 138; school law of 
1870, 330; share of surplus rev- 
enue, 171; social disorder in, dur- 
ing reconstruction, 354-356; tutors 
in, 41; University of, 84, 134; 
work of Peabody Fund in, 391-393 

"Georgia Scenes," 80 

Germans, 13, 14, 23, 81 

Gibbs, J. C, 358 note 

Globes, 107 

Goodrich's "History of the United 
States," 287 

Grammar, 270; early texts on, 288- 
291 

Grand Remonstrance, 8 

Grange, 426 

Granger, Nicholas, 28 

Great Charter, 8 

Greensburg Female Academy, 95 

Greer, David B., 257, 258 

Habersham, James, 35 

Hall, James, 84 

Hall, Lyman (Governor), 133 

Hampden-Sidney College, 83, 84, loi 

Harsh discipline, 43 

Hayne, Henry E., 373 

"Henkel Bill," 348, 349 

Henry VIII, 10 

High Commission, 11 

High schools, teacher-training classes 

in, 449 
Hill, George W., 363, 364 
History, 270, 271; early texts on, 

286-288 
Hodgson, Joseph, 375 
Holden, W. W. (Governor), 368 
Hollins Institute, 409 
Holmes, Gabriel (Governor), 149 
Hornbooks, 26 
Horner, James H., 87 
Houston, Sam, 433 
Howe, John De La, 99 

Idle poor, increase of, 6 

Illiteracy, attempts to eliminate, 447 ; 

commissions, 447 ; revealed by war, 

446 
Incentives, for colonization, 11, 12; 

for educational reforms, 424-428 
Indentured servants, 22, 23 
"Independents," 10 



INDEX 



477 



Indian Massacre, 29 
Industrial training, 21 
Innes, James, 30 
Institutes, 449 

Jamestown, 21 
Jeanes Fund, 456 

Jefferson, Thomas, bill for free 
schools, 114, lis, 122, 124, 125, 126; 
reforms of, 122 ff.; school plan of, 
124 ff., 133, 156, 213, 216 note 
Jefferson College, 96, 246, 247 
Jeffersonian democracy, 2 
Jess's "Arithmetic," 279, 280 
Jillson, J. K., 328, 370, 371 
Johnson, Andrew, 31, 231 note, 232 
Johnson, Isaac (Governor), 243 
Johnson Female Academy, 95 
Johnston, Gabriel, educational in- 
terest of, 37 
Johnston, Samuel, library of, 39 
Juvenile Court, 44s 

Ker, David, 96 

Kirkman"s "Grammar," 289-291 

Lancasterian schools, 258, 266 

Lee, Robert E., 311, 326 

Liberty Hall Academy, 37, 84, 85, 
88, 89 

Libraries, 27, 38, 39 

Lincoln, Abraham, 311 

Lindsey, Caleb, 97 

Lindsley, Phillip, on need of schools 
in Tennessee, 142, 143 

Little Rock Academy, 97 

Local government in England in 
seventeenth century, 9 

London Company, 29 

Longstreet, Judge Augustus Bald- 
win, 80 

Lotteries, 76, 94, 96, 104 

Louis XIV, 14 

Louisiana, academies in, 94-96 ; ante- 
bellum school system of, 242-246; 
apprenticeship and poor-law prac- 
tices in, 63 ; education in, during 
reconstruction, 356-357; first pub- 
lic-school law of, 243 ; lotteries 
allowed in, 94; permanent public- 
school endowment established in, 
187, 188 ; recent condition of, 192 ; 
share of surplus revenue, 188; 



work of Peabody Fund in, 319, 
325, 393-396 

Low educational position, explana- 
tion of, 441, 442 

Ludlam, Richard, 31 

Lusher, H. M., 394 

Luther, Martin, 10 

McCorkle, Samuel C, 84 

McDuffie, George, 218; quoted, 218, 
219 

McEwen, Robert H., 164; defalca- 
tion of, 231 ; first state superin- 
tendent of Tennessee, 229, 230, 231 ; 
investigation of, 167 

Mclver, Alexander, 369 note 

Mclver, Charles D., 430 

McKleroy, John M., 378 

McWhir, William, 85, 86 

Malnutrition of rural children, 447 
note 

Mangum, Willie P., 87 

Manly, Charles, 87 

Mann, Horace, 197, 310 

Manning, Judge Thomas C, 398 

Manual-labor schools, 98-103, 142, 
303 

Manual training, 448 note 

Maps, 107 

Marietta (Georgia) Educational 
Conference, 241 

Marion, General Francis, quoted, 115 

Martin Academy, 89 

Mathematics, 276-280 

Mayo, A. D., 169 

Mecklenburg Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, 85 

Meek, Alexander B., 182, 251 

Methodists, schools of, 82 

Methods of teaching, early, 296, 297, 

431 

Middleton, Henry (Governor), 130, 
216 

Military schools, 98, 103, 104 

Milton, John, 73, 74 

Minden Female Seminary, 95 

Minor, John B., 326 

Mississippi, academies in, 96; ante- 
bellum school system of, 246-250; 
apprenticeship and poor-law prac- 
tices in, 63, 64; education in, dur- 
ing reconstruction, 359-362 ; fraud 
and extravagance in, 360; immi- 



478 



PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 



gration to, 247 ; lottery privileges 
allowed in, 96 ; permanent public- 
school endowment established in, 
172, 173; recent condition of per- 
manent pubHc-school endowment 
in, 191 ; school law of 1870, 331 ; 
work of Peabody Fund in, 396- 
398 ; omitted from benefits of 
Peabody Fund, 391, 397-398 
Mitchell, D. B. (Governor), 135 
Mixed schools, 32off ; hatred of, in 

South Carolina, 370, 372 
Monasteries, dissolution of, in Eng- 
land, 5, 6 
Montpelier Academy, 95 
"Moonlight schools," 447 
Moravians, 34 
Morrill Act, 103 
Morse's "Geography," 281-284 
Moseley, Edward, library of, 39 
Murphey, Archibald D., 147 ; report 

of, 147, 148 
Murphy, Isaac (Governor), 313,314 
Murray's "Grammar," 288, 289 

Nashville Normal College, 405, 412 
National Teachers' Association, 308 
Negro, education of, 454-458; slav- 
ery, 22, 23 
"New England Primer," 43, 44, 274, 

27s 

New Orleans Normal School, 394 

Newspapers, early establishment of, 
39, 40 

Nicholson, Francis, 38 

Noble, Patrick, 220 

Nonattendance, 439, 445 

Norfolk Academy, 88 

Normal College, 236 

Normal schools, 449 ; academies 
forerunners of, 108 

North Carolina, academies in, 88; 
ante-bellum school system of, 233- 
328; apprenticeship and poor-law 
practices in, 58-61 ; early school 
legislation in, 145-155; education 
in, during reconstruction, 367-370 ; 
Established Church in, 24, 25; 
permanent public-school endow- 
ment established in, 173-177; pub- 
lic-welfare plan of, 445, 446; 
recent condition of permanent pub- 
lic-school endowment in, 190, 191 ; 



school law of 1839, 154; of 1869, 
30, 36, 37> 316, 320, 323, 327; 
share of surplus revenue, 153, 154, 
174, 175, 176; tutors in, 41; Uni- 
versity of, 85, 14s; work of Pea- 
body Fund in, 39S-401 

"North Carolina Institute of Edu- 
cation," 151 

Northwest Ordinance, 115, 120, 183, 
185, 247 

Ogden, Robert C, 429 

Ogden Movement, 429 note 

Oglethorpe, James, 34 

"Old Blue Back," 272-273 

"Old field schools," 41, 42 

Older States, educational beginnings 

in. Chapter V 
Olney's "Geography," 284-285 
Oneida Manual Labor Institute, 100 
Organization, administrative, 442- 

444 ; improvements in, needed, 

450-454 
Orphans' Courts, see Chapter III 
Orr, Gustavus J., 354-356 
Ouachita Female Academy, 95 
Overseers of the poor, duties of, 52 

Palatines, 14 

Parker, Felix, 231 note 

Patillo, Henry, 87 

Partridge, Captain Alden, 104 

Patton, Robert M., 251 

Payne, Bruce R., 413 

Peabody, George, 384, 385, 405, 413 

Peabody College for Teachers, 412, 
413 

Peabody Fund, 81, 109, 251, 415; 
policy of, 386; purpose of, 384- 
386; results of, 410-413; states 
aided by, 386; work of. Chapter 
XI; in Alabama, 386-388; in Ar- 
kansas, 389, 390; in Florida, 390, 
391 ; in Georgia, 391-393 ; in Louis- 
iana, 393-396 ; in Mississippi, 396- 
398 ; in North Carolina, 398-401 ; 
in South Carolina, 401-403 ; in 
Tennessee, 403-405 ; in Texas, 405- 
407; in Virginia, 407-410 

Pease, Henry R., 359 

Pendleton, Edmund, 326 

Penn, William, 14 

Pensions for teachers, 450 



INDEX 



479 



People's Party, 427 

Permanent public-school endow- 
ments, 157, Chapter VI ; in Ala- 
bama, 177-183, 191, 192; in 
Arkansas, 183-185, 191 ; careless- 
ness in management of, 163 ff., 189 ; 
in Florida, 186, 187, 191 ; in 
Georgia, 170-172, 190; in Louisi- 
ana, 187, 188, 192 ; in Mississippi, 
172, 173, 191; motives of estab- 
lishing, 162 ; in North Carolina, 
173-177) 19O) 191; recent condi- 
tions of, 189 ff.; in South Carolina, 
169-170, 191; in Tennessee, 164- 
167, 191; in Texas, 185, 186, 192; 
in Virginia, 167, 168, 190 

Perry, Scott, 231 

Perry, William F., 181; first state 
superintendent of Alabama, 252, 
253, 272, 310; quoted, 181, 182 

Pestalozzi, 98, 303 

"Peter Parley's" "Geography," 285, 
286 

Petersburg Academy, 88 

Petition of Right, 8 

Phelps-Stokes Fund, 456 

Physical examination of school chil- 
dren, 447 

Pickens, Andrew, 216 

Pike's "Arithmetic," 277-279 

Pine Grove Academy, 95 

Plantation system, influence of, 22 

Plaquemines Academy, 95 

Political conditions in England, 8 

Polk, James K., 142 

Poor law of 1601, significance of, 7 

Poor laws and apprenticeship, 13, 21, 
Chapter III; essential features of, 
66, 67, 68; extent of, 67, 68; in 
Alabama, 64, 65; in Arkansas, 64; 
in Florida, 65, 66; in Georgia, 62, 
63 ; in Louisiana, 63 ; in Missis- 
sippi, 63, 64; in North Carolina, 
61-68; in South Carolina, 61-62 ; in 
Tennessee, 63 ; in Texas, 66 ; in Vir- 
ginia, 52-58; significance of, 68-70 

Pope, Colonel William, 86 

Populist Party, 427 

Poydras Academy, 95 

Presbyterians. 82 ; educational work 
of, 82-87 

Present tasks and tendencies, Chap- 
ter XIII 



Presidential plan of reconstruction, 
311-313; educational reform dur- 
ing, 313-317 

Primers, 26; ante-bellum, 274, 275 

Prince Edward Academy, 84, 88 

Printing presses, early establishment 
of, 39, 40 

Privy Council, 11 

Property values, 442 

Providence Academy, 95 

Provisional governors in Southern 
States, 311, 312 

Public high-school movement, 109 

Public- welfare legislation, 445, 446; 
plan in North Carolina, 445, 446 

Puritans, 10, 11 

Quakers, 81 

Queen's Museum, 37, 85 

Raleigh Register, 152 note 

Raleigh Sentinel, 320 

Randolph-Macon College, 214 

Reading, 270 

Reading books, ante-bellum, 275, 276 

Reading-circle work, 449 and note 

Readjustment and the Reawakening, 
Chapter XII 

"Rebel" question, 312 ^ 

Reconstruction, Acts, 318; congres- 
sional plan of, 313 ff., 317 ff.; con- 
stitutional conventions, 318-325; 
constitutions and laws, 321 ff.; de- 
structive effects of, 307 ff.; educa- 
tion during, Chapter X; effects of, 
379, 380; persistent influences of, 
416; presidential plan of, 311-313; 
process of undoing begun, 379; 
school legislation, 332, 333; views 
concerning educational influence 
of, 307 ff. 

Reed, Reverend James, 37 

Reform, attempts at, before the 
Civil War, Chapter VII 

Reformation, 14 

Religious changes in Europe, 9 

Religious liberty, 23, 26; dissensions, 

25 

Renaissance, 9, 73 ; American educa- 
tional, 122 

Reorganization after the Civil War, 
Chapter IX 

Restoration, English, 74 



48o 



PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 



Richmond College, loi 

Richmond County Academy, 88 

Richmond Dispatch, 319 

Richmond Educational Convention, 
207, 210, 211 

Richmond Normal School, 409 

Road-building, 468 

Roane, John S. (Governor), 256 

Robertson, James, 86 

Rosenwald Fund, 456 

Ruffner, Henry, 206, 207, 326; Wil- 
liam II., 2o5, 326, 339, 340, 345, 
35°, 351, 353 

Rural education, children, defects of, 
447 note ; consolidation, 460-467 ; 
advantages of consolidation, 461- 
463 ; need of supervision, 454 ; 
school, plight of, 458-460; slow 
progress in, 437; teachers, meager 
training of, 440 

Rural life, tendency to, 22 

Ryan, John B., state superintendent 
of Alabama, 254 

Salaries, 440 

Santa Anna, 433 

Savannah Poorhouse and Hospital 
Society, 36 

Schism Act, 25, 37 

Schley, William (Governor), 172 

School practices before i860, Chap- 
ter VIII 

Schoolhouses, early, 43 

Schoolmasters, advertisements relat- 
ing to, 41 ; instructions to, 26 

Schools, advertisements relating to, 

Scotch-Irish, 13-16, 23, 82; educa- 
tional work of, 82-87 

Scribbling on flyleaves, 292, 293 

Seabrook, W. B., 224 

Sears, Barnas, 81, 357, 369; work 
of, as general agent of Peabody 
Fund, Chapter XI 

Secondary education, 439 

Sectarian pride, 75, 77 

Selective idea in education, 12 

Selective Service Act, revelation of, 
446 

Separate schools for the two races, 

324, 325 
"Separatists," 10 
Shepherdstown Academy, 88 



Slater Fund, 456 

Smith, Francis H., 205; Thomas, 

362 ; William A., 214 
Smith-Hughes Act, 448 
Smith-Lever Act, 448 
Societies, educational, 31-36 
"Society for Promoting Manual 

Labor in Literary Institutions," 

100, lOI 
Society for the Propagation of the 

Gospel in Foreign Parts, 26, 27, 

35 
South Carolina, 22, 30, 37, 130-133, 
319, 321, 322; academies in, 88; 
ante-bellum school system in, 215- 
228; ante-bellum teachers in, 218; 
apprenticeship and poor-law prac- 
tices in, 61, 62; condition of 
schools in 1900, 422; description 
of early schools in, 297-303 ; edu- 
cation in, during reconstruction, 
370-374; erroneous views concern- 
ing permanent public-school en- 
dowment before Civil War, 169, 
170; Established Church in, 24, 
25; estimate of ante-bellum school 
system in, 227; hatred of mixed 
schools in, 370; recent condition of 
present public-school fund, 191; 
school laws of 181 1 and 1835, 131, 
132,215, 216; school laws of 1870, 
328; State Normal School organized, 
373; teachers and teaching in, 295, 
296; tutors in, 41; work of Pea- 
body Fund in, 401-403 
South Carolina College, 130, 218, 

220, 372 
South Carolina College of Agricul- 
tural and Mechanical Arts, 373 
South Carolina Gazette, 41 
South Carolina Military Academy, 

104 
South Carolina Society of Charles- 
ton, 33, 34 
Southern Central Agricultural So- 
ciety, 241 
Southern Commercial Congress, 291 
Southern Conference Movement, 

429 note 
Southern Education Board, 429 
Southern Educational Journal, 291 
Southern Educational Movement, 
429 note 



INDEX 



481 



Southern States, educational com- 
parison, 438, 439 

Sparsity of population, 442 

Speed, Joseph H., 377 

Spellers, 26 

Spelling, 270 

Spelling books, ante-bellum, 272-274 

Spring Creek Academy, 95 

Springfield Institute, 95 

State Agricultural Society of South 
Carolina, 221, 222 

State boards of education, 443, 450, 

451 
State superintendents, 443 and note, 

4SI, 452 

Stearns, Eben S., 404 

Summer normals, 449 

Sumner, Henry, 222 and note; re- 
port of, 222-224 

Sunbury Academy, 85, 86 

Supervision, need of, 454 

Surplus revenue of 1837, 177, 178 

Survey commissions, 444 

Swift's "Public Permanent Common 
School Funds in the United States," 
169, 170 

Symms School, 29 

System, present, Chapter XIII 

Tasks, present. Chapter XIII 
Tate, James, 85 
Tate's Academy, 85 
Taylor, John B., state superintend- 
ent of Alabama, 253, 254 
Teacher training, need for, 441 
Teachers, advertisements relating to, 
41; character of early, 294, 295; 
improving status of, 449, 450; 
pensions, 450 ; teachers' homes, 450 
Teaching, early methods of, 43 
Tendencies, present, Chapter XIII 
Tennessee, 315, 324, 330; academies 
in, 89-93; ante-bellum school sys- 
tem of, 228-233; appprenticeship 
and poor-law practices in, 63 ; 
early school legislation in, 139- 
14s; education in, during recon- 
struction, 364-365 ; need of schools 
in, 142, 143; permanent public- 
school endowment established in, 
164-167; public lands in, 89-93, 
139-145; school law of 1806, 139; 
school law of 1823, 141 ; school 



law of 1827, 143; school law of 
1830, 143, 144, 145; recent con 
dition of permanent school fund 
of, 191; share of surplus revenue, 
166; work of Peabody Fund in, 
403-405 

Tennessee State Teachers' Associa- 
tion, 403, 404 

Term, school, 438 

Texas, 316, 319, 324; academies in, 
98 ; ante-bellum school system of, 
258-261 ; apprenticeship and poor- 
law practices in, 66 ; early consti- 
tutional provision for schools, 259, 
260; early schools in, 258; educa- 
tion in, during reconstruction, 366, 
367; permanent public-school en- 
dowment established in, 185, 186; 
recent condition of permanent 
public-school endowment, 192 ; 
school law of 1854, 260, 261 ; work 
of Peabody Fund in, 405-407 

Textbooks, in Alabama, 272; in Ar- 
kansas, 271, 272; complaints 
against, 291, 292; free, 448 note; 
in North Carolina, 271; selection 
of, 448 note; suggested uniform- 
ity of, 271; in Virginia, 271 

"The American Primer," 274, 275 

Theory and practice, colonial. Chap- 
ter II 

Third Party, 427 

Thirteenth Amendment, 312 

Thirty Years' War, 13 

Thornwell, James H., 102 ; report of, 
220 

Tomato clubs, 448 note 

Towns and cities, progress in, 437 

"Tractate on Education," 73 

Trained teachers, need for, 440, 441 

Training of teachers, promoted by 
Peabody Fund, 412 

Transportation of pupils, 463, 464 

"Travels of Four Years and a Half 
in the United States," 77 

Treaty of Westphalia, 14 

Trinity College, 236; early teacher- 
training courses in, 236, 237 

Troup, G. M. (Governor), 238 

Turner, James (Governor), 146 

"Turning out" the teacher, 300, 301 

Tutorial system, 21, 40, 41 

"Two-bit Club," 34 



482 



PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 



\)^ 



Ulster, plantation of, 15 
Unemployment in England, 5 
Uniformity of texts, 271 
Union Labor Party, 426 
Union Male and Female Academy, 95 
Union Society of Savannah, 36 
United States Military Academy, 104 
University of Georgia, 84, 106, 134 
University of Nashville, 86, 90, 404 
"University of New Orleans," 94 
University of North Carolina, 85, 

106, 14S 
University of Orleans, 242 
University of Virginia, 106 
Urban schools, progress in, 347 

Vermilionville Academy, 95 

Vestry Act of 1777, 60 

Virginia, 11, 12, 14, 22, 28, 29, 
36, 318, 319, 320, 321, 32s, 330, 
338 ff . ; academies in, 88 ; ante- 
bellum school system of, 198-215; 
apprenticeship and poor-law prac- 
tices in, 52-58; attitude towards 
teachers in, 295 ; constitutional 
provision for school taxes, 209, 
210; defective legislation in, 346; 
diversion of school funds in, 341 ff . ; 
education during reconstruction in, 
338 ff.; educational conventions in, 
206-208; effect of Civil Rights 
Bill in, 351-354; Established 
Church in, 23, 24; literary fund 
established in, 127; permanent 
public-school endowment estab- 
lished in, 167, 168 ; recent condition 
of public-school fund, 190; school 
law of 1796, 126; school law of 
1818,128; school law of 1829,200; 
school law of 1846, 207, 208, 209; 
school law of 1870, 326; teachers 
in, before i860, 203, 204; tutors 
in, 41 ; work of Peabody Fund in, 
407-410 

Virginia Baptist Seminary, loi 

Virginia Company, 8 

Virginia Educational Association, 339 

Virginia Educational Convention, 
210, 211 

Virginia Educational Journal, 339 



Virginia Literary, Scientific^ and 

Military Academy, 104 
Virginia Military Institute, 205 
Vocational work, appropriations for, 

448, 449 

Waddel, Moses, 83, 86; school of, 

83, 84 
Wake Forest College, 102 
Waltham, John, 28 
Washington, George, 86; quoted, 

116 
Washington Academy, 96, 97 
Washington College, 89, 206 
Washington and Lee University, 84 
Webster's "History of the United 

States," 288 
Webster's "Old Blue Back," 272, 

273 

Weeks, S. B., 252 ; quoted, 93 

Weld, Theodore D., 100 

Wesley, Charles, 35 

West Baton Rouge Academy, 95 

West Point Academy, 104 

Whitefield, George, 35 

Whitmarsh, John, 31 

Wiley, Calvin H., editor of 
teachers' journal, 237; first 
state superintendent of North 
Carolina, 235, 237; leadership 
of, 237, 238, 270, 310, 398; re- 
ports of, 237; textbooks of, 237 

William and Mary College, 36, 78, 

125 
Williams, Dave, 31 
Williams, David R, (Governor). 

216 
Wills, 28 

Winchester Academy, 88 
Winwright, James, 30 
Winyaw Indigo Society, 31, 32, 33 
Wise, Henry A. (Governor), 211; 

quoted, 212, 213, 214, 225 
Witherspoon, John, 86 
World War, defects revealed by, 468 
Writing, 270 

Young Men's Democracy, 427 

Zion Parnassus, 84, 85 






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